THIS IS JIM HIGHTOWER SAYING . . .
If ignorance ever goes to $1,000 a kilo, I want to form a cartel on Gen. Barry McCaffrey's head. This guy is America's current Drug Czar, in charge of spending some $18 billion a year of our money on a ludicrous anti-drug war that has done nothing to stop the flow of drugs into the USA, but has done a lot to infringe on the personal liberties of us innocent citizens. The general is especially harsh on marijuana, which he sees as a "starter drug" that is so dangerous he doesn't even want terminal cancer patients to be able to use it for medicinal purposes. I think we're talking terminal ignorance in McCaffrey's case.
Perhaps his weirdest stance, though, has been against letting American farmers grow the profitable, useful, and ecologically-sound crop called industrial hemp. Until the 1930s, hemp was a major US crop--even grown by George Washington. But, you see, hemp is a cousin to Marijuana--sort of like near beer is a cousin to beer. You can't get high on hemp, but you can make beautiful paper with it, clothing, fiber-board to build houses, nutritious foods (even beer!), skin-care products, a non-polluting alternative to gasoline, and even a biodegradable "plastic."
But Generalissimo McCaffrey is stomping around like he snorted a big bag of stupid, declaring that the effort by farmers to re-legalize the growing of hemp is a "subterfuge" to legalize marijuana. Oh? Maybe that's why former CIA director James Woolsey is lobbying for the North American Industrial Hemp Council, which includes such hippie-potheads as 3M corporation on its board of directors. And maybe that's why Republican legislator David Monson of North Dakota has just pushed a bill through to legalize any person there to "plant, grow, harvest, possess, process, sell, and buy industrial hemp."
Hemp is a natural for America. To know more, contact the North American Industrial Hemp Council: 707-823-2800.
Do-it-yourself lawyering is more than a long tradition in America--it's a Constitutional right. From writing our wills to defending ourselves in court, we Americans can tend to our own legal business without the assistance of attorneys if we choose to--and these days, with the price of attorneys ranging from $50-an-hour on the cheap side to $1,000-an-hour for the Cadillac set, a majority of people are no longer able to afford a lawyer.
DEFEND YOURSELF!
This is why a whole line of how-to-be-your-own-lawyer books have taken root during the past couple of decades. Need to draw up a lease, file a sexual harassment complaint, write an employment contract, handle the sale of your house, fight a speeding ticket? No need to shell out big bucks to have an attorney shuffle the papers for you, when for less than 30 dollars, you can get a self-help book--complete with the basic papers you'll need to submit--for each of these specific legal actions. And, there are now computer software programs that walk you through the process, allowing you to be your own "cyberlawyer."
But--Holy Paul Revere--here comes the legal establishment! In Dallas, a committee of powerhouse attorneys sued Quicken Family Lawyer, a self-help software firm, and this same committee is "investigating" Nolo Press/Folk Law, a publisher of self-help lawyering books. In both cases, the establishment is charging that these legal tools are so helpful that they amount to the "unauthorized practice of law," and the big shot lawyers want the tools banned. Sadly, a federal judge recently sided with the establishment, ruling that the Quicken software is illegal.
Aside from the obvious issue of lawyer greed raising its ugly head here, this is an assault on our Constitutional right to represent ourselves in America's legal system. Worse, they are using book-banning as a means of denying us that right. To follow this important case, and to get more information about this constitutional issue, go to the Nolo Press Web site: www.nolo.com.
Suppose you owned a diesel vehicle of any kind, but instead of using junky old diesel gasoline, you could run the vehicle on a readily available fuel that gets more miles to the gallon and costs less than diesel, is non-toxic and nonflammable, and instead of emitting the puke-inducing stink of petroleum fuels, smells like french fries or doughnuts. Wouldn't that be a sweet deal?
MAKE YOUR CAR A "VEGGIE VEHICLE"
Welcome to the Veggie Van. It's the brainchild of Joshua and Kaia Tickell of Sarasota, Florida--two twenty-something bioneers who crisscross America in their standard-issue diesel Winnebago, powering it on nothing but used vegetable oil. Repeat: Used Vegetable Oil. They get the oil--for free!--from fast food restaurants as they travel. Instead of pulling up to Exxon or Mobil, they simply pull up to a McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts, which are always glad to unload used cooking oil. Kaia and Joshua then make a simple mixture of three ingredients: (1) the used veggie oil; (2) a small dab of lye; and (3) a bit of Methanol. Mix it all vigorously, let it set for eight hours, then pour the pure "bio-diesel" off the top directly into the fuel tank of your vehicle. Crank up your engine [sound of engine start] . . . and away you go! By the way, the solid matter that falls to the bottom in this easy mixing process is glycerin soap-so you can make the fuel, then wash your hands with what remains.
I stress that this bio-diesel can be put in any diesel vehicle, without any adjustment of any kind to the motor. Indeed, Dr. Rudolf Diesel, who invented the engine back in 1892, intended it to run on vegetable oil. Joshua and Kaia are the kind of grassroots innovators America needs to move us toward energy sanity. To go with them, order their how-to book, titled From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. To get it, call them at 1-800-BOOK LOG
An ancient proverb says "when spiders unite, they can tie down a tiger." Well, one of the most menacing tigers in our country is the low-wage policy of both big business and government, which are using everything from corporate downsizing to global trade deals like NAFTA to hold down the paychecks of working-class families. Despite generating record profits, productivity and stock gains for corporate America, eight out of ten workers in America have seen their own incomes stagnate or fall. But so many can be taken advantage of for only so long. The establishment media has ignored this story, but all across America, the "spiders" have been getting organized, and they're beginning to tie-down that low-wage tiger. Their silk thread is a powerful concept called "the living wage," which already has raised the wage floor in city after city.
SUCCESS OF THE LIVING WAGE
The concept is that a minimum wage should not be an artificially low number chosen by politicians, but a fair amount that at least provides an income above the poverty line for full-time workers.
The grassroots organization, ACORN, along with the New Party, have been leaders in organizing local coalitions of churches, unions, community organizations, and progressive politicians to fight City Hall for living wage ordinances. Their approach is to attach the fair-wage requirement to city contracts awarded to big business. If the corporations are getting millions of dollars from us taxpayers, they should return some benefit to our communities in the form of a living wage to their lowest-paid employees. The whole economy gains, as those employees have a few more bucks to spend locally--rather than all the money being hauled off to corporate headquarters.
This is more than an idea--it's now the law in places like Chicago, Durham, Boston, San Antonio, Oakland, Milwaukee, Des Moines and Portland.
To fight for a living wage where you live, call ACORN: (202) 547-2500.
Here come the patriots marching to the front to stand with NATO in its war against Yugoslavia!
THE CORPORATE WAR MACHINE
Let's call their names: Boeing. GM. Honeywell. Motorola. Northrop-Grumman. Raytheon. TRW. United Technologies. Executives from these and other military contractors are not literally going to the front, of course, but they did step forward in Washington recently to donate up to $250,000 each to help pay for NATO's 50th anniversary celebration. It's their weapons and high-tech gadgetry that NATO is using to pummel Yugoslavia with thousands of tons of missiles and bombs, costing us taxpayers billions of dollars . . . and counting. So the contractors simply wanted to show their patriotism (and gratitude) to the NATO heads-of-state who buy their military hardware.
One unmentionable aspect of the war is the role of this multibillion-dollar corporate war machine. For openers, just having such a massive stockpile of these razzle-dazzle weapons, which promise the possibility of killing your enemy with little risk of being killed, practically assures that they'll be used. A thug like Yugoslavia's Milosevic comes along and NATO leaders get itchy trigger-fingers, thinking: "Hey, let's hit that S.O.B. with a few smart bombs, then he'll want to talk peace, and we'll look good without costing us anything."
Weapon-makers love this thinking for it uses up inventory and creates new orders. For example, all those Tomahawk missiles you see exploding on TV cost $1.2 million each, and Congress already is ordering more of them. As a result, Raytheon, which makes the Tomahawks, has seen its stock price zoom since the war began. As one happy Wall Street analyst said, "Kosovo is just the catalyst. We're going to keep seeing money flowing into defense stocks."
This is Jim Hightower saying . . . It's time to confront the profiteers and downsize the corporate war machine.
Contact us directly at: hightower@essential.org --Copyright 1998, Hightower and Associates, Inc.