President Obama recently made these stunning comments to the New Yorker magazine recently. .. Words that could potentially signal the inevitable end of Cannabis Prohibition

 

"Middle-class kids don't get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do," he said. "And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties." 

But, he said, "we should not be locking up kids or individual users for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writing those laws have probably done the same thing." Accordingly, he said of the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington that "it's important for it to go forward because it's important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished."

D.E.A. Fuels violence in Chicago with Agreement with Drug Cartels

One more glaring reason to end the so called " War on Drugs"

Now when 70% or more of these drugs are going into Chicago........For 10 YRS!!
You do the math..

Just Ice- American Justice For Black Americans

Marissa Alexander

was sentenced by a Florida judge to 20 years in prison for firing what she says was a "warning shot" into the wall after a physical altercation with her husband, Rico Gray.




Today George Zimmerman walks away a Free man using only a "Self  Defense" argument .



How, could a 31-year-old woman in a relationship with a man who had a history of domestic violence, and whose actions did not result in any physical injury, be sentenced to two decades in prison while George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Martin, is out on bail  Found "Not Guilty" ? 

"The Florida criminal justice system has sent two clear messages today," One is that if women who are victims of domestic violence try to protect themselves, the "Stand Your Ground Law" will not apply to them...The second message is that if you are black, the system will treat you differently."

Kreepy Ass Cracker?

George Zimmerman

Pittsburgh rapper Jasiri X 

        just dropped a few verses on the George Zimmerman Trial..here’s what he had to say:

I decided to put my thoughts about the Zimmerman trial, the ruling on the Voting Rights Act, and Race in America into a 16 bar verse:
Oh you was born black welcome to the curse race
Oh you was born brown you sure this is your birthplace
This is America the home of the white man
Where every other American gets a hyphen
People of color police shoot us on site man
And then be like damn I was just frightened
See just the color of my skin is intimidating
Here I’m a criminal just based on my pigmentation
We need God our only mass is incarceration
We need Jesus cause these preachers got the heart of Satan
They toast to our death celebrating with ice cream
Vanilla with the cake cone must be a white thing
They wanna stop us from voting well what do rights mean?
If the end result of our struggle can just be wiped clean
And Zimmerman is a creepy ass cracka
A racist child murdering liar and bad actor

Now even though he really is bi-racial... He sure fit right into the mold as a "Kreeepy Ass Kracker" when he began stalking Trayvon 

School in Ohio Bans Afro Puffs and Braids

Just when you thought the Natural look was safe ....... The Horizon Science Academy in Ohio has decided otherwise


 From strawberri Curls...
http://strawberricurls.com/2013/06/21/ohio-school-bans-afro-puffs-and-braids/

 I look at our natural hair styles as a statement of who were are. We finally look at our hair and find it beautiful and then somebody has the nerve to turn around and classify it as “fadish”. How can we teach our girls to love their hair when you have things like this happening?






Thoughts??

Mass Incarceration Normalized

This is actually disturbing to me as a Black Man..... 

Here we see P.B.S. attempt to "Normalize" Mass Incarceration...

The project is Bankrolled by  a foreign contractor who builds Hi Tech Weapons for Americas National Defense System. 


The main sponsor, BAE Systems. The British contractor, whose U.S. subsidiary is one of the largest suppliers to the Department of Defense, depends — like many other defense contractors — on the low-overhead labor of prisoners incarcerated at for-profit facilities. 


Right now, federal prison inmates in correctional institutions across America are making parts for Patriot missiles.

They are paid $0.23 an hour to start, and can work their way up to a maximum of $1.15 to manufacture electronics that go into the propulsion, guidance, and targeting systems of Lockheed Martin’s (LMT) PAC-3 guided missile, originally made famous in the first Persian Gulf conflict.

Read more: http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/defense-industrial-base-defense-budget-defense/3/7/2011/id/33198?page=full#ixzz2W8tHuK6w


That said, BAE has a large philanthropic arm, and perhaps "Little Children, Big Challenges" was one of the more obvious projects to support.

 To get a feel for the project, check out the first video, titled "What is Incarceration?", on Sesame Street's website.

Heres an excerpt from their website....

Little Children,
Big Challenges: Incarceration

The incarceration of a loved one can be very overwhelming for both children and caregivers. It can bring about big changes and transitions. In simple everyday ways, you can comfort your child and guide her through these tough moments. With your love and support she can get through anything that comes her way. Here are some tools to help you with the changes your child is going through.



 This is a prime example of how profits determine policy.... 

This kind of stuff must be opposed ... 

Mass Incarceration is not NORMAL, and using our tax dollars to subsidize these greedy companies profit schemes is not the way to go...

Your thoughts....

DWB...Driving While Black??? A Taste of Reality

Screenshot via ABC 15

Jessie Thornton.

A 64-year-old  Ariz., man was arrested and charged with drunk driving even though tests showed that he had a blood alcohol level of 0.00 and a drug recognition officer said the man was completely sober.
Jessie Thornton, a retired firefighter who says he often sleeps during the day and is up at night because of his wife’s schedule as an ER nurse, was pulled over late one night after his car crossed the white line in his lane.
“He (the officer) walked up and he said ‘I can tell you’re driving DUI by looking in your eyes,’ ” Thornton told local news station ABC 15. Thornton had just come from a late night workout at an LA Fitness gym, and says his eyes could have been red because he been swimming. He says the officer told him he had “bloodshot eyes” and said “I think you’re DUI.”
“He (the officer) goes, ‘Well we’re going to do a sobriety test.’ I said, ‘OK, but I got bad knees and a bad hip with surgery in two days.’ ”
According to ABC 15, medical documents did indeed show that Thornton was scheduled to undergo a hip replacement two days after he was pulled over, and that the police report even noted that he had hip and knee problems.
Officers went on with the sobriety test, but as Thornton said, “At one point, one of the officers shined the light in my eye and said, ‘Oh, sorry,’ and asked the other officer if he was doing it right.”
Still, he was later handcuffed and taken down to the police station, where he made to take a Breathalyzer test. The results?
“It comes back zero, zero, zero,” Thornton told ABC 15.
A drug recognition officer then looked over Thornton, determining that he was completely sober. After he did all the tests, Thornton said the expert told him, ‘I would never have arrested you, you show no signs of impairment.’ ”
In fact, documents show that the drug recognition officer wrote in his statement that “in my opinion Jessie was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
By that time, however, Thornton’s car was impounded and the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division had been notified that he had been arrested for a DUI. He says he was later alerted that his license had been suspended. And because this happened on a Friday night, he didn’t get his car back until Monday.
Eventually, Thornton was released from police custody and the DUI charge was later dropped.
This isn’t the first Thornton was pulled over by police, however. The retired firefighter says he’s been stopped 10 times since he moved to the retirement community of Surprise from Ohio, and has been ticketed on four occasions. The latest stop and wrongful arrest have prompted Thornton to hire an attorney and sue the Surprise police department.
ABC 15:
“This is a case of D-W-B, driving while black,” said Thornton’s attorney Marc Victor.
Victor’s office has filed a notice of claim against the City of Surprise seeking $500,000.
“It’s not totally about the money, although I’m already out more than $5,000, that’s $5,000 that I don’t have,” said Thornton.
“This is not the way American citizens ought to be treated by officers or treated by anybody for that matter,” said Victor.
...“Here he (Jessie) is being harassed for no other reason than the color of his skin,” said Attorney Charity Clark. “It’s frustrating that somebody had to go through this type of experience, they poke and prod him and arrest him for nothing.”
Thornton said his daughter, who is in law enforcement, has filed an official complaint with the City of Surprise.

Gary Webb Receives Posthumous Apology From LA Times Writer

Gary Webb is getting an apology from an unlikely source. The  Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who was drummed out of the newspaper industry after writing a story exposing the CIA’s involvement in the introduction of crack cocaine in America is getting a posthumous apology from one of the people who helped drum him out.

 

Nine years after investigative reporter Gary Webb committed suicide, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who played a leading role in ruining the controversial journalist’s career, has publicly apologized — just weeks before shooting begins in Atlanta on Kill the Messenger, a film expected to reinstate Webb’s reputation as an award-winning journalist dragged through the mud by disdainful, competing media outlets.

Katz and other establishment press writers worked overtime to discredit Webb and destroy his career. Part of the motivation seemed to be annoyance at being scooped by a lower tier paper like the San Jose Mercury News along with an instinctual defense of the establishment itself. The Washingon Post’s former ombudsman, Geneva Overholser, would later claim that the Post had displayed a “misdirected zeal” in attacking Webb.
In the wake of the experience Webb conceded that many of the progressive critiques of the corporate media were correct, saying:

If we had met five years ago, you wouldn’t have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me … I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn’t work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job … The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.

Webb would later be vindicated by a Department of Justice report claiming the CIA did violate rules to help suspected drug traffickers and testimony by the CIA Inspector General who admitted before Congress:

CIA worked with a variety of people to support the Contra program. These included CIA assets, pilots who ferried supplies to the Contras, as well as Contra officials and others. Let me be frank about what we are finding. There are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.

Despite being later vindicated, Gary Webb’s career was destroyed by the backlash to his reporting. In 2004, reportedly depressed over not being able to find work or pay his bills, Webb committed suicide. The apology by Jesse Katz comes as filming is set to begin on the appropriately titled Kill The Messenger staring Jeremy Renner based on Webb’s life and career.

D.E.A. Still using Perjured ,Fired, Snitch for Drug Cases

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D.E.A. criticized for use of 'Highest-paid snitch' previously fired for perjury.

Here is yet another Glaring Reason to end the so called " War on Drugs"

PHOENIX -- A government informant who was terminated by the Justice Department years ago amid accusations of serial perjury has been reactivated and is working an undercover drug case with DEA agents in Phoenix, prompting allegations of government misconduct by a defense lawyer in a pending case.
Andrew Chambers Jr., once labeled in court records as "the highest-paid snitch in DEA history," gave false testimony under oath in at least 16 criminal prosecutions nationwide before he was exposed in the late 1990s, according to U.S. District Court filings.
Chambers was an informant from 1984 to 2000 for the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies in at least 280 cases. The sting operations, which sent dozens of suspects to prison, took place in 31 cities across the nation.
During his first career as an informant, Chambers, 56, reportedly received up to $4 million in government money, nearly half of that from the DEA. He also was a paid informant of the FBI, customs-enforcement officers, postal inspectors, the Secret Service and other police agencies. He was credited with a role in 445 drug arrests.

Blacks Are Singled Out for Marijuana Arrests, Federal Data Suggests

After Reading an article today I thought to myself ...


If you never get at the ROOT of a problem...
  You can Never fix it...




 During Testimony to Congress in support of the 1937 "Tax Stamp Act..."

Harry Anslinger said"

"There are over 100,00 marijuana users in the United States today, and MOST are Negros, Latinos, Fillipinos , and Jazz Entertainers.. Their Satanic music Jazz, and Swing result from Marijuana usage, This marijuana causes white women to seek Sexual relations with Negros Entertainers, and any others"


"The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is the effect on the degenerate Races"

source: Gore Files  


 For this we need a Constitutional Law Professor to argue the affected peoples case....


Oh Thats Right!!...

We have one in the white house right now.....

all snark aside .. I do hope he turns a corner on this issue.





Why are We Wasting So Much Money ?!?!

Thoughts??

NOT EVERY ARTIST IS AN ARTIST (fROM DAVEY D'BLOG REPOSTED)

Not Every Artist is An Artist..Some Are Lapdogs & Spokespeople For Oppression

In response to Beyonce telling women they are B–tches and to bow down and Rick Ross rapping about date raping someone, there are some who tried to explain that we should leave such artists alone and that they have FREEDOM of SPEECH.. Lets get a couple of things clear..
If you are pushing oppression and have multinational corporations with million dollar budgets and vast resources, promoting destructive messages then YOU ARE NOT an artist.. What you are is a worker…You are a lackey for corporate interests and should be seen as such.. You are no different then Ronald Reagan when he used his acting skills to be a spokesman for General Electric..In this case you are a spokesperson for oppression. Your creativity and artistic talent is being pimped out for repression not liberation..
Spokespeople and workers for oppression look for huge paychecks, cheap fame and an ostentatious lifestyle so they can bury their shame, ease their guilt and distract us from the fact that their souls were sold and their principles forever compromised. A corporate lap-dog will make excuses for having their talent and art be marketed for young minds and used destructively. They’ll tell you about the importance of ‘sales’ and ‘staying relevant’ or how parents should raise their kids.. These are corporate talking points all designed to avoid responsibility.. It doesn’t change their wrong doings of spreading corporate poison and using ‘art’ as the validating vehicle
This is not about telling artists they don’t have freedom of speech or there is one particular party line they gotta adhere to..This is about waking up folks and making it very clear who’s imperialistic interests some who call themselves artists are furthering..It’s about shining a bright light on the deep pocketed nefarious forces behind the work being hawked to the masses..
Are you in the business of saving souls or selling souls? Are you leading us on to the plantation or off? Time will tell the side you choose to represent…
Davey D


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFN9f8q5g0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHnUFpCeGxQ

Earlier when I posted this.. I got an insightful response from former BLA (Black Liberation Army) leader and former political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad..Here’s what he added to my remarks..
I think maybe we should understand how the status of “Race Music” has been transformed in America by a combination of technology, social change, and the corporate globalization of culture. Once “Black” music, R&B, Jazz Gospel, Blues etc, were separate and apart from white corporate and popular music personified by “Tin-Pan Alley” top song listing.
In the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s Our music was patronized and confined (segregated) to our community therefore it reflected our communal reality (faults and all). But after the upheavals of sixties, the rise of the white Hippie “Love Generation” , the urbanization of white supremacist power to control inner city Blacks, mainstream White culture subsumed it’s Black sub-cultural counterpart. This process at once depoliticized Black music, dummed it down to nursery rhyme like songs (almost every popular Rap track, gangster, or “Dirty South” song sound like nursery rhymes appealing instantly to the adolescence generation that was never really taught what growing up means- but more importantly changed the nature of community musical introspection into gross expressions of sex, violence, money, and the values of misogyny.
Hence acting and behaving as backwards Niggers is acceptable.. authentic, the “Hood”. What we used to call “country” (Gold grillwork dressing like a clown in a bad circus act, is now glorified in videos and on stage) because the money corporate America can generate from ghettoized entertainment serves not just they’re bottom-line, but also the promotion of American values, mystique and material wealth – and most importantly the place of the Black man/woman in the overall scheme of things, we have the artists we do today making millions.
I may be wrong, but the last time I looked, white youth were the major consumers of Hip-Hop music and related paraphernalia. White girls don’t consider themselves “Bitches” in the street sense of that odious term – so what Beyonce says in this respect doesn’t resonate with them – what resonates is her outfits and style, so its not unusually for folks to admire stylish assholes, or that an entire generation of young Black women in the “Hood” have raised and are raising a generation of Shanniqa’s and children named after their Moma’s favorite perfume or club drink or luxury car. What does it say about one’s class status and values when waking up in a new Bugatti is a dream come true?

THE REALITY OF THE DRUG WAR

Recently a video was posted via Youtube of a former U.S. Marshall who headed up drug task force officers in various states for the.U.S. Marshall's. and the .D.E.A

Matthew Fogg

The revelation is clear . This is not a War about keeping our communities safe . It is a War to genrate profit for the various police agency's who are on the public dole.


Its clearly visible the intended purpose of the operations. The use , and distribution of drugs happen at a similar rate across various ethnic groups , and income levels; however African Americans are arrested at twice the rate of their White Male Counterparts.

JURY NULLIFICATION

In this day and age it most certainly is a rare instance where a formerly convicted ex felon is arrested again for the same charge, and is able to use a jury nullification defense to receive a
 
 

NJ Weedman AKA Edward Forchion did just that. 


He summarily used NJ's own  newly enacted Medical Marijuana laws against  decades of old laws regarding the criminal prosecution for distribution/possession of Marijuana.

Edward Forchion is a dual resident in NJ , and CA. 

He argued that the he is licensed to posses marijuana in CA ,and that it was not for 
distribution, but for medicinal reasons.  He argued that the jury has the right to effectively nullify a law.

He has a form of cancer that produces painful bone tumors.  He uses cannabis to ease the pain.

 In pretrial motions, which were subsequently barred from being argued before the jury, 

Forchion challenged the constitutionality of the state’s criminal code ; because New Jersey now has a Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana law that recognizes the benefits of cannabis.

 
 The decision came after Forchion was almost held in contempt of court Thursday morning as he delivered his closing argument.


 NJWeedman tried to introduce his jury nullification argument into the closing, but Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey, who had already barred any discussion of it, quickly stopped him.

 "If you want to make a martyr of yourself, the court will deal with you," the judge told Forchion, who was wearing a "Marijuana... It's OK" t-shirt.

 "You've done everything you can to disrupt this trial."

The state claimed that because a pound of marijuana was involved, Forchion intended to distribute it. 

Perhaps sensing the tide turning against him, Burlington County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Luciano tried to convince the jury that the case was not a "political referendum" on medical marijuana or cannabis legalization.

"It is not a litmus test on the War On Drugs," Luciano claimed.

The assistant prosecutor also claimed that "numbers and common sense" should result in a guilty verdict, claiming that Forchion had enough weed on him when he was stopped by police in Mount Holly on April 1, 2010, to smoke "for months."

Luciano claimed Forchion would have to smoke two to three joints an hour nonstop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to get through the pound of marijuana in six months. 

NJWeedman disputed the prosecutor's math, saying it didn't accurately portray how he uses cannabis.

 

Ultimately the Jury rejected the prosecutors claims, and issued a "Not Guilty " Verdict. 

I guess they didn't want to waste 30-40 thousand a year to incarcerate NJ Weedman for having a pound of natural vegetation with medicinal properties.   

 The state wouldve recommended upwards of 5 yrs in this case.

  Leave it up to fiscally conservative juries.
 

MASS INCARCERATION A HISTORY

The topic today is Mass Incarceration, and how it effects the black community as a whole.

Im writing this blog from the prospective of an ex felon who has experienced the ramifications of bad choices coupled with a overly aggressive judicial system.    With that being said more than a decade has passed after my prior trangression ,and the institution of the Prison Industrial Complex has continued  to explode.

 In 1970 Richard Nixon implemented the official " War on Drugs "














Future presidents Reagan ,and Clinton all piled on "Get Tough on Crime' bills that ushered in harsh sentencing guidelines for repeat ,and first time offenders.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr3355


Soon opportunism takes over, and the "Drug War is seen as a cash cow for all involved.

As evidenced here  the strategy in the 80's ran a dual fold agenda. While mounting a vigorous campaign against "Crack Cocaine" Reagan was making sure Sandanistas were being funded from sales of the drug in inner cities.

Which brings us where we are today. We have quadruped our prison population , and have earned the dubious title of the Worlds most Incarcerated  .
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx


 Prison is big business  now ......
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/dividendchannel/2012/10/08/corrections-corporation-of-america-larger-than-sp-500-component-owens-illinois/

Recently the CCA  offered 48 cash strapped states the opportunity to privatize their prison systems with the agreement that the jails be kept at a 90% capacity rate over 20 years. There's only one way to accomplish that seemingly insurmountable feat. States would most likely have to enact stiffer penalties for existing laws and enact new legislation with increased penalties for different crimes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/private-prisons-buying-state-prisons_n_1272143.html

The need for profit drives this industry just like any other, however the commodity that the Prison Industrial Complex trades in is human bodies . Prison labor is also big business, as prisoners are forced to labor for mere pennies.

The need for a constant flow of prisoners is fueled , and fed by the 40year old "War on Drugs" which is essentially a war on American Citizens with no reasonable end in sight.
The impact this profiteering trend has had on the black community is devastating. From 1970 on you can see the decline of black fathers in the household , and growing numbers of single parent households with a generational recycling of the same problems. The targeting of the black community is blatantly obvious.

Even though its well known that whites ,and blacks use , and sell drugs at the same rate, but some how blacks make up more than half of the entire prison population . Something is wrong , and has been wrong for a very long time.

My summation is this. If we do not tackle the "Drug War " the problems within the black community that are cyclical in nature will continue to repeat itself.

The feel good integrity, and family value speeches will not rectify the damage perpetuated by years , and years of deliberate racist policies to profit, and subjugate young black males to the whims of private prison profiteers.