Hey! I Count Too.

Why should people all over the Earth stand up or rather take a stand on some small plot of land and say: “Hey, I count too.”?

They call it the “Occupy Movement.” They try to get the Power Elite to hear them by getting them to first see them. They've had some success overturning powerful dictators, but no real success dealing with the root cause of issue that allowed for decades of authoritarian, dominant control. The reasons are obvious to some. Today, Glenn Greenwald is announcing the release of his new book: With Liberty and Justice for Some.

I'm offering his complete article here (below) and at Salon.com for all to read. What he says, far more eloquently than I, and lays out the primary motivation behind this blog Report. His arguments validate and substantiate what this Report has worked at showing locally. The political institutions are illegitimate and the corrupting control of the criminal elite are responsible for the ensuing anarchy rampant in society that threatens us all. The sad truth is, all the corrupt politicians, law enforcement, and judicial systems cannot make uncorrupt American law and justice. One bad apple rots the whole barrel of apples. So, what's the solution?

Pot Devil Garners More Souls

The unintended consequences that are a threat to everyone.

The Devil gets his due again. He got three this time and was trying for five. But don't tell the local folks it had anything to do with marijuana. No, they want to keep a pretty face on that harpy.

The first I knew about this incident in Kettenpom, a little community 30+ miles East of Garberville in Trinity County was when I read, "Trinity sheriff's Office denies sending couple to investigate 911 call" in the Saturday, March 19, 2011, issue of the Times-Standard. Apparently, as reported in another article in the Redwood Times, "Three people killed, two injured in Kettenpom incident" a 911 call came into the CHP and a Trinity County Sheriff's deputy was dispatched from Lewiston, over a hundred miles away. Why in such a situation an officer from the Garberville area wasn't dispatched is anyone's guess. I know it is a difference is counties, but is the same state. Two people involved in a "marijuana operation" were killed by a third apparently robbing them. This person later died in a car crash evading Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies. Two other locals that went to check on the two killed were also stabbed.

This story is typical of a constant litany of such stories resulting from the illegal production, sale and use of marijuana. Whatever medicinal or other positive benefits pot brings to society is totally outweighed by the price everyone pays for 50 years of corruption.

Look at the laissez faire attitude expressed by a practicing attorney, Eric Kirk on his blog, Sohum Parlance II post, Kettenpom Murders:

Kym has done an excellent job of pulling together what information is to be had.  I’ve been content to leave the coverage in her excellent hands.  I don’t know any of the people involved, but it’s all very sad.
And please spare us the posts about how marijuana growers are bring this onto themselves. It’s really not productive. [Emphasis added]

I encourage everyone to read the comments, specially that of “Not A Native,” and the two lawyers, Ed Denson and especially Eric Kirk. These lawyers apathetic justification of the “marijuana” motivated corruption and what that corruption's cost in lives are, speaks for itself – Family sensibilities take precedence here. Besides its just the cost of doing business.

Kirk directs everyone to another marijuana apologist, Kym Kemp's Readheaded Blackbelt blog. In all I counted 8 (eight) postings by her on this story. Be sure to read the comments, paying attention to how unbiased she is on this subject, and what she believes is most important about this matter.

1. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/14/double-homicide-in-kettenpom-two-neighbors-injured-suspect-killed/ 

2. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/16/why-call-my-dad-asks-victims-daughter-in-the-kettenpom-murder-case/ 

3. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/17/one-of-the-victims-identified-in-the-kettenpom-double-murdersphotos-and-accounts-organized/ 

4. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/17/we-love-sky-please-put-him-up-for-people-to-remember-victim-of-double-murder-in-kettenpom-memorial/ 

5. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/17/kettenpom-murders-linked-to-marijuana/ 

6. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/18/press-release-from-trinity-sheriffs-dept-adds-important-information/ 

7. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/18/kristines-page-photos-and-words-to-remember-her-by/ 

8. Link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/19/the-kettenpom-double-homicide-how-to-follow-the-unfolding-story/

A simple lesson I learned driving loaded big rigs is that every time you start up from a dead stop at a stop sign or light there is a lot more work than if you can keep rolling. I also learned that if you intended to go through a light on a yellow or do a “California Rolling Stop” there was NO WAY I could get stopped if there was an emergency need to do so. Intending to stop, made the stopping maneuver easy and safe. Today, I'd say, upwards of 50 percent of the drivers I observe intend to blow every stop sign they can – never intending to stop. They have totally become inured to the purpose of the stop sign or light, and the deadly hazard they've become. Since “everyone does it” the police and emergency responders excuse away the death and mayhem caused as, just another “accident” that couldn't be avoided.

What I see in these anecdotal blog conversations are self-serving, calloused excuses made to justify the direct consequences of the insidious works of corruption. Do I think that all those people that decided the only way they could survive and raise their families was to grow and sell marijuana that either killed someone or died defending their gardens deliberately set out to totally corrupt the very communities they live in, do business and raise their families? Probably not. When that way became accepted and transformed the majority into a “lawbreaking habit,” who thought that corrupting way would legalize ignoring stop signs and lights?

--Joe

No One Survives When They Are Dead

[UPDATE Below] Pre-legalization hype and sick commentary on Ernie's blog.

What is written in this newspaper's so-called opinion may be true from a certain point of view. If it is, then it is an absolute obscenity!

When I read this Sunday's latest from the Times-Standard's, As It Stands: “Why Humboldt County will survive marijuana legalization” it made me sick. This is how the tentacles of corruption's insidious infecting, rotting disease permeates and destroys the very fabric of civilized, law-abiding people and their social order. You, and I am talking to all supporters and complicit business people, can put a pretty dollar face on this corpse you call “legalized marijuana,” but you can't change the fact that is a rotten, “corrupted” filthy cadaver to anyone and everyone that comes near it or touches. However these enabler's want to have it today, these criminals never ran away from any system. Stancliff contradicts his own statements listed blow in bold italic. The simple truth is POT, or marijuana, or “Granddaddy Purple,” or more true to it's real nature: “killer buds” is NOT legal. These people ALL, from the least to the greatest, are criminals. Everyone, starting with the “discriminating users, those that support, does business and profits from these criminals and their “cannabis industry” are complicit in their crimes. They pervert the sanctity of our communities and our democratic social order.

The generational legacy of POT is indelibly cast within this society and its filthy disease is the universal corruption manifest in the mob rule, anarchy, and as reported here how the “end justifies the means.” This writer white-washes these criminal's lifestyles as something acceptable and even extraordinary by calling these so-called farmers, “pot pioneers,” as “back-to-the-landers” – something respectable, a positive contribution to the community. When you read what the newspaper and this guy have to say you get the impression that these people are good, decent, family loving, land loving, benevolent foundations of whatever community they live in. They were just 40 years ahead of their times and just now all the rest of us are only catching up to their inevitable “new reality” – they freeloaded on all the rest of us taxpayers.

One of the pillars of Humboldt County, Supervisor Mark Lovelace, heads up “a task force” to “define regulatory issues surrounding grows.” Then there is something called “Humboldt Medical Marijuana Advisory Panel formed to “organize growers, businesses and employees” naturally doing what such people do right out in public.

Notice how this writer normalizes generations of outlaw activities:

Everyone has to wait until the new rules are laid out. I don't see that as a roadblock, just the settling in of a new reality. Keep in mind, marijuana has thrived in Humboldt County for decades. The culture it's created is woven into the very fabric of our communities. [Emphasis added]

What allowed for decades of this corruption?

There's no place in the United States with a longer, more complex relationship between the public, marijuana growers, law enforcement and merchants. Legalizing pot is the final destination on a road that has had many detours since those first “back-to-the-landers” planted seeds in our fertile soil.

This writer says finally:

“As it stands, independent spirits are common behind the Redwood Curtain, and their marketing ability will come through when Californians are legally allowed to partake of pot.”

The minor technicality called “legality” was only a small bump in the road for these “common” farmers manifesting their “independent spirits” alright. That independence led to HOW MANY DEAD BODIES buried in hills “behind the Redwood Curtain”? No one knows how many countless people were given an ignominious burial after a bullet in the brain. That's one of the dirty little secrets Dave Stancliff or any other ingratiating panhandler wants to confront, let alone talk about.

Stancliff's amoral justification for all the dead bodies is explicit when he says:

I believe Humboldt County will adapt to legalization because its economy needs pot revenue, and has for decades. There has always been an unspoken alliance between growers and business owners. It's an economic factor in keeping the local economy afloat. Jobs have been scarce, and few pay better than trimmers, since the decline of the lumber mills and fishing. [Emphasis added]

An "econmic factor" that has inundated businesses with tax free cash. That's why those of us that pay HIGH taxes as a consequence are justified in making sure these complicit enablers make up the difference. Once it's legal they can, for the next 40 or 50 years, repay all they owe by paying all their profits back in taxes.

We know that criminals begat criminals. What then did the children learn from their parents openly doing business with criminals? Did they learn that when the law sets the speed limit at 55 MPH that they could drive any damned speed they thought they could get away with? What happened as a result when their wanton lawless actions caused other innocent people death and destruction? Were they dealt with and held accountable for their crimes? Or did everyone pass it off as just some kind of unavoidable “accident”?

That fact that these people are not accountable and held liable does not make any of them good, decent or right.

[UPDATE :: Friday, June11, 2010]
“Cannabis experts and activists holding marijuana health and safety forum in Southern Humboldt” - That's "health and safety" for “Chemistry, The Economics and the Politics.” That's what they'd like everyone to think. Read the complete article to the end and you will find out that it's all about "BIG MONEY."

Who are these “Cannabis experts and activists”? Lets see who Danna Tamm identified: “pot activists, growers, officials and members of the business community.” Lets not forget also: “The Garberville Veterans Association is co-sponsoring this presentation.” That should make everyone feel good.

The statement that identifies the corruption of illegal marijuana growing, selling and using that says it all, is this:

“Custer (Charley Custer of the Humboldt Medical Marijuana Advisory Panel) said he hopes this conversation will help the local industry develop a plan for regulation, so that when policymakers are ready to address the issue, there will already be a plan in place.”

“In addition, he said other officials in California have already begun looking at how the marijuana industry can be transformed into a big money industry. And Humboldt needs to catch up, Custer said.”

“LOCAL INDUSTRY”? Makes it sound like legal industries like the “Timber Industry” or the “Fishing Industry.” “Big Money – Sounds like something you'd hear in a casino. When the criminals suddenly get respectable, guess who the losers are?

--Joe