Washington Comments On Richard Snowden

(It may be coincidence; it could be prophecy).

*To RICHARD SNOWDEN

Philadelphia, December 4, 1793.

Sir: I have received, and thank you for the first vol: of the American Revolution. I shall read it, I am persuaded, when my leizure will allow me with not less pleasure because it is “Written in the style of ancient history.” I thank you also for the favorable sentiments and good wishes you have expressed for me, and am etc.

Did our century’s Richard Snowden create the first volume of a new American Revolution? Some feel he did, by exposing that our government’s treatment of privacy was no different from that of Soviet held East Germany….

Prediction: Hemp Will Save The Small American Farm

You heard it here first.  More on this later, but first all need to work to make hemp completely legal…  Hemp  is God’s gift to America, and I don’t mean when it goes up in smoke.  I am speaking of  fibers…

Begin educating those who won’t vote for hemp legalization….

The hemp plant is a renewable resource..

Hemp enriches the soil it grows in. …

Hempseeds and hemp oil are highly nutritious and delicious…

Hemp is the only plant that contains all of the essential fatty acids and amino acids required by the human body… (stop over-fishing).

It is an excellent option for vegetarians.

It’s quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother’s milk.

Fishermen sprinkle hempseed on the water as an effective bait..

Songbirds will pick it out of the mix as they prefer it over other seeds.

Hemp is becoming a common ingredient in lotions and many other skin, hair, and cosmetic products.. (compared to toxic chemicals).

Hemp is an ideal material for making paper. It regenerates in the field in months (unlike trees which can take 30 years or more to become harvestable after planting.)…

It makes a fine quality paper that is naturally acid free and does not become yellow and brittle or disintegrate over time like conventional paper.

Hemp is also excellent for making rugs and other textiles.  Levi Strauss’ original denim jeans were made of hemp.

Hemp is the traditional rope making fibre due to its flexibility, strength, and resistance to water damage..

Hemp oil can be used to create biofuels to replace gasoline for diesel engines. Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are renewable and produce less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.  Diesel built his original engine to run on hemp oil.

Alternatives to plastic can be made from hemp… Hemp based materials can replace wood and other materials used to build homes and other structures including foundations, walls, shingles, paneling, pipes, and paint.

Hemp may look like marijuana, however it does not contain the active chemicals that cause mind-altering effects.  Politics have kept this gift from us.  When Dupont made nylon, it influence was used to suppress hemp production….

“58,000 tons of hemp seeds were imported into America for paint products in 1935″ — Sherman Williams Paint Co.

Hemp produces the same amount of oxygen while it’s growing that it would use in carbon dioxide if burned as a fuel. Also, due to it’s leaf/root ratio (this can often be 10% roots vs 30% leaves), hemp can produce between 20% – 40% more oxygen than will be polluted.

Thomas Jefferson himself said, “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.”

The draft of the Declaration of Independence was made on hemp paper….

The first American Flag was made of hemp.

If hemp cross-pollinates with marijuana, it creates a lower THC marijuana, not a smokable hemp… Illegal growers will not grow near hemp farms because it practically destroys the effectiveness and marketability of their product.

Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block the sun’s UV rays more effectively than other fabrics..

The US Drug Enforcement Agency classifies all C. sativa (hemp) varieties as “marijuana.”  Hemp was grown commercially (with increasing governmental interference) in the United States until the 1950s. It was doomed by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp…

While Congress expressly expected the continued production of industrial hemp, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics lumped industrial hemp with marijuana…

Because of its low lignin content, hemp can be pulped using less chemicals than with wood…

It is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop…

Today it is clear that these beginnings of “the war on drugs” were pushed into being by the newspaper, cotton, and petroleum industries, all of which had much to fear over being competitive with hemp…..

Finally, a word of wisdom from our founding father…. “Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.” — George Washington 1794

 

 

 

 

9/11 In Memory Of Our Most Tragic Defeat

The cannon fire could be heard from Brandywine Hundred. It was louder in Concord. It was deafening in Chadd’s Ford. The Battle of the Brandywine was in full swing, and the result was a defeat of the American Forces leaving Philadelphia wide open to the British invasion.

Sadly for us this marks the end of Delaware’s direct involvement in the Revolutionary War. After this battle, the war in the North became a sitting game, and Cornwallis felt compelled to shift to the South to try and gain some momentum. He misread the South’s resilience, and the war of course ended when he got boxed at Yorktown.

As for Delaware, the British had previously marched up from Glasgow through Newark then up Kirkwood Highway and camped at Marshalltown. One can still see the embankments they threw up. The Americans realized that they had only a narrow route north before did the British. Had the British chosen to fight through the night, the war would have been over with Washington’s defeat. He was trapped by water on three sides. General Howe was a person adverse to exertion, and chose to investigate the following morning. When the British awoke, they saw the Americans had disappeared in the night, leaving their camp fires burning to fool the British watchmen.

The British marched north to Kennett Square, probably along what is now Route 82… On the morning of 9/11 the British marched towards Philadelphia. Washington assumed the lazy Howe would march the easiest route and set up defenses in Chadd’s Ford covering the road to Baltimore, which is Route 1 today. What Washington miscalculated is that the British had better intelligence than he. Here is how.

Washington was employing those in Philadelphia to give him advice. Howe was approaching on the outside, and chose those locals to tell him the layout. The difference in intelligence was a simple as one looking out, and one looking in. Perhaps you may remember the meme last decade of showing a city as the makeup of their entire World? For instance one of Rehoboth, would show Rehoboth and Dewey and Ocean City in Great detail, and Washington and Baltimore as tiny patches on the last edge of the map? Well that myopia actually affects our judgment. As one approaches the unknown, one is apt to know only his one way. But to use that same analogy backwards, as one approaches the known, from the area of the unknown, one is far more perceptive of all other options leading towards that goal or destination.

So it was with Howe, who found out there were two ford to the north, both overlooked by Washington, and the access to the battle field was relative easily. Howe committed 5000 of his 18,000 troups to attacking Washington’s front lines, and sent 13,000 north to cross both the west and east branches of the Brandywine, then head south. imagine the surprise of the American army who had been confident that they were holding their own, to find they’d been fighting a measly 5000 men in the fog, and now had 13,000 marching behind them on their right side….

We retreated. Some said it was a disciplined retreat, and Lafayette is given a lot of credit for that. He was wounded this day in history by the way, yet he established a rallying point, communicated it to all the troops, and an orderly retreat was managed. But the surprise to our right cost us dearly. We lost 11 of our 14 artillery guns. The British listed 587 as killed, missing or wounded, but no records of the Americans lost is known.. General Nathaniel Greene is later quoted as guessing 1200 to 1400 Continentals were lost… Commander Howe wrote to the British Foreign Secretary that 300 dead, 600 wounded, 400 prisoners were the total of America’s casualties.

One cannot imagine how dark things seemed for the prospects of an American nation after this day.

• Americans had been tricked and easily routed.
• They’d lost 79% of their artillary, having only 3 cannons left.
• The Continental Congress fled in the night to Lancaster for one day, then to York.
• Military supplies were moved to Reading.
• Philadelphia, the cradle of democracy, was wide open to the British Army.
• It was 52 years before the founding of Yeungling’s brewery, so none was available to drown one’s sorrows.

They suffered fully sober.  If we can remember the tragedy of our 9/11, try to imagine something ten times worse. There was no hope, period.

A makeshift hospital was scrambled together in Wilmington Delaware, and 350 causalities were sent.

At What Price, Loyality?

This is going to my hard core Republican friends. Why are you still supporting Romney?

1) You know he is not going to win.
2) You know as the election heats up, his Bain Capital experience will make Republicans untouchable for decades.
3) You can’t pin down where Romney stands on anything.
4) He tied his dog to a car.
5) He stands with black people and says “Who let the dogs out, woof, woof.”

Most of you are telling me, “I certainly can’t vote for Obama. I guess I’m not voting for President this time.”

Let’s say, just for argument sakes there was a presidential candidate out there who says to have good government you need: …………………

1. Become reality driven. Don’t kid yourself or others.
Find out what’s what and base your decisions and actions
on that.

2. Always be honest and tell the truth. It’s extremely
difficult to do any damage to anybody when you are
willing to tell the truth–regardless of the
consequences.

3. Always do what’s right and fair. Remember, the more
you actually accomplish, the louder your critics become.
You’ve got to learn to ignore your critics. You’ve got to
continue to do what you think is right. You’ve got to
maintain your integrity.

4. Determine your goal, develop a plan to reach that
goal, and then act. Don’t procrastinate.

5. Make sure everybody who ought to know what you’re
doing knows what you’re doing. Communicate.

6. Don’t hesitate to deliver bad news. There is always
time to salvage things. There is always time to fix
things. Henry Kissinger said that anything that can be
revealed eventually should be revealed immediately.

7. Last, be willing to do whatever it takes to get your
job done. If you’ve got a job that you don’t love enough
to do what it takes to get your job done, then quit and
get one that you do love, and then make a difference.

Honesty. Integrity. Principal.

Sounds good so far. Let us say just for argument, he had chief executive experience. Let us say just or argument that he once ran a state, one of the fifty in this union. Let us say while governor, this is what he did…..

During his tenure, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax-increase in the state’s entire history.

1) He cut the rate of government growth in half,

2) Left the New Mexico state government with a budget surplus and 1000 fewer employees (without firing anyone),

3) Privatized half of the prisons in the state,

4) Brought a state-wide school voucher system to New Mexico.

5) Vetoed 750 bills (more than all the vetoes of the other 49 Governors in the country at that time, combined) with only 2 overrides, earning him the nickname Gary “Veto” Johnson.

6) In 1999, Johnson became the highest-ranking elected official in the United States to advocate the legalization of drugs.

7) Shifted Medicaid to managed care.

ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU WANT? ISN’T THAT WHAT WE NEED?

Can you not think of a better way to show your lack of enthusiasm over a wealthy capitalist buying his way to the top of your ticket, by voting for someone who has character, who does what you’ve always wanted, a doer, not a talker?

And to think…. you were simply just going to throw your vote away.

His name is Gary Johnson. He is the new party’s candidate for President.

Remember Republicans. It is your values that are important. If your party has given up and moved on from your values, don’t think you have to be loyal to the word…. “Republican”… What you have to be loyal too, is yourself. Always. Never lie to yourself.

You don’t need to waste your vote on Romney. You probably need to find more about this guy, Gary Johnson, and then throw your support behind him.

Don’t worry it is not one of the two parties on whose ticket he is running. Remember, at one point in time, the Republican Party was a once a third party too. One that went mainstream because of its core values, its principles resonated with everyday American People.

Will The Real Kirsten Kukowski Please Be Quiet?

Kirsten Kukowski was quoted by the Washington Post….

“President Obama campaigned on hope and change, but three years later he’s just another typical politician,” in a feeble attempt to cite his high-wattage fundraisers in order to try to undercut Obama’s image with working-class voters…..

You don’t get it, do you? Americans know a president needs cash to win an election. Americans know where the cash is, just like Obama does….

The difference between him and Republicans, is that unlike them, when Obama gets the cash, it helps us… When Republican get the cash, it “hurts” us…. Union Busting, lower wages, higher premiums, higher medical out of pocket expense, higher energy costs, higher prices, and yes… higher taxes… from states and local governments who have to make up the difference that the wealthy were supposed to pay, but got off free…..

So, it is good that he is doing what he is doing. That calms our soul…

Don’t worry. You have historical precedent in what you say about our Commander in Chief… During the Revolutionary War, the Royalists tried the same tactic when George Washington had to ride off, hat in hand and try to shake down wealthy Patriots in Philadelphia and New Jersey….

Every American should be grateful to Robert Morris.…the wealthy man who saved the country.

Again Afghanistan…

Yesterday, Obama was in Dover to grieve the return of those heros who crashed.

It brings up again the argument of why we are there……

There are small truths, and there are Great Truths…

For example, a amall truth may be that your child is on heroin. It will suck away everything you own.

A Great Truth, is that the boy or girl is still your child; you can’t wipe out that fact. You can’t say, “you made your choice; I’m done with you.”

Of course you will get that advice from well meaning friends. They’ll point out the hard facts that your child made his own decisions; that your child bears the responsibility; that your child made his bed and now has to lie in it.

And in the context of small truths,….. they will be right. Why should you cash out your retirement for legal fees, fines, clinics, drying out facilities? Why should you go to bed with a collapsed heart, cleaved by grief, from guilt, from the ghosts of “what could have been?”

But our lives…. are run by “Great Truths”, not small ones.

The “Great Truth” is that:.. “that is always your child”. The “Great Truth” is that: there can always be “hope”. The “Great Truth” is that: miracles do often happen, and when they do, they often leave a trail of good in their wake… The “Great Truth” is that: if you do choose to give up, and stop fighting the fight for “good”, the answer suddenly becomes final. It is over. You were it’s last hope.

But,…. if you never give up, for as long as you keep fighting, it can,… it can have a “good” ending some day. At some point in the future, it will have all been worthwhile…. Every effort, every pain, every tear, will have had its place in history as being a piece of the road that brought you to this marvelous conclusion.

Yes, miracles do happen. They never happen to those who give up.

So the question that needs addressed to the American people, is not symptomatically whether we should or should not get out of Afghanistan….

The question needs to be framed, that as Americans, should we pursue our journey towards a Greater Truth… or collapse upon the recognition of the small truths, and cut our losses…?

Essentially every president faces this test. Dying in quest of achieving a “Great Truth” is worth the lifeblood of every American parent’s children. Losing one’s child in vain, is the opposite.

Our goal in Afghanistan, is not to eliminate Al Qaeda, nor eliminate it’s unwilling ally, the Taliban. Our goal is not to support Karzai, who increasingly is showing himself to be using the vehicles of corruption to keep himself alive…. Our goal is not to isolate Pakistan, which will tend to increase their nuclear paranoia, were a freely independent Afghanistan to do a reach around and engage Pakistan’s arch rival India…..

Our goal is simple… It is to leave Afghanistan in a position where it can rule itself, and rule itself with a power that is not intent on crashing airplanes into our cities……….

It is that simple… We are simply there to protect individual families of Afghanistan from being on the receiving end of terror from either side or warring party, and provide each family with enough security for them to figure out just how to accomplish these goals…..

Yes Afghanistan is a mess now. And yes, there are hopeful signs of a positive conclusion. Those of you who shun the military, probably missed the significance of this teeney, tiny little line in today’s paper…..

“Mohibullah (chief target of the raid) and the unidentified man who fired the shot at the helicopter attempted to flee the country, ISAF said, most likely to Pakistan, but were tracked to a wooded area in a nearby district. Both were killed by an air strike Tuesday, ISAF said.”

That sent a tsunami through the insurgent community.

“Sure you can get lucky and bring down one of our more antiquated helicopters, but don’t expect to be a hero for long. We will find you. We will kill you…”

Every insurgent will think twice the next time, RPG in hand, a helicopter flies over his head…. “Um, not me, too risky. I won’t be the one this time.”

Small truths… Greater truths.

No one ever faults the parent of a child who successfully beats his habit, who drove the streets at night looking for their child on every corner, who stayed by his child through treatment and jail, who supported them right to the end, when finally that child, after all that effort, decides to dry out permanently, and start taking control of their own life.

Walking down our streets at night, asleep in its shadows, lie the sleeping bodies of all those children of parents, who chose to accept the “small truths”, and washed their hands, giving up on them.

That’s pretty much the answer to Afghanistan.

Awesome Comment Over At Delaware Liberal!!!!!!!

Here.

A Big Squawk About Health Care

In Robert Reich’s recent plug for the public option, there was a subtle line that slipped by and only just now has begun to resonate…

“Unless you make a hell of a racket, the for-profit insurers and drug companies along with their platoons of Washington lobbyists. and lawyers are going to win this thing….”

I started thinking. You know if one of my kids squawks and the other is silent, the silent one loses out.. I succumbed to the easy way out and just go with the flow, after all it makes little difference to me..

Then i thought of office politics. You know, if a certain group squawks loud enough, upper management always caves into their viewpoint even when the squawker is considered the biggest joke on the floor… nothing more than a pain in the ass… After all, it makes little difference to them, and if it shuts up some asshole, and no one else seems to care, then you know, why not….

So it makes sense that the squawkers arguing against the public option may bend the ear of Congress to the point that when considering the huge vacuum of silence on the other side, they may just cave in against their better sense, and keep all insurance private…

And the 80% of Americans behind the Public Option, get dismissed…. Why? Siimply because you didn’t stand up for your rights when they really mattered…

The arguments have already been made as to why the public option will lower everyone’s medical costs. I won’t reiterate those explanations here. But, I will tell you that 5 years from now, when your house gets foreclosed to pay off medical bills, you will be yelling, or squawking for someone to do something….

And it will be too late… For that someone was you… And the time is now…. and for whatever reason, you chose to do nothing…..

So here is what you must do, if you don’t want to lose your house….. Some of these people I know, it won’t make a difference to. But that is no excuse not to plead your case…. For you, and others, all combined may just make such a “hell of a racket” that for your representative to vote against the Public Option, would not just cost him his office, but cost him all credibility as a future lobbyist, especially in the field he is hoping to retire into.

So do this for yourself, your children, your grandchildren. Pick up the phone, call these numbers and tell them you plan on keeping your house, so they had better vote to allow the public option in the health care reform bill… Remember it takes everyone to make this work…. or if you want special treatment…. just drop in….

MIKE CASTLE: U S CONGRESS

201 N. Walnut Street, Suite 107
Wilmington, DE 19801-3970
p: 302.428.1902
f: 302.428.1950

TOM CARPER: U S SENATE

301 North Walnut Street
Suite 102L-1
Wilmington, DE 19801
Phone: (302) 573-6291
Fax: (302) 573-6434

TED KAUFMAN: U S SENATE

1105 N. Market St.
Suite 2000
Wilmington, DE 19801-1233
tel: (302) 573-6345
fax: (302) 573-6351

We need 100,000 callers… That’s 1/8 of Delaware. And if, you, like someone who graduated from Colby College, just happen to know someone in Maine… or if you, like someone from Bozeman, know people in Montana, or if you, who served at Minot, know someone in North Dakota, get on the phone… and talk them into doing the same thing…

It won’t cost you much… maybe a little time, it will be a chance to catch up with old friends, and……. in 5 years….. you could still have your house because of it…….

The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794: A Lesson for Today

Photo courtesy of Travelbeat.net

An analogy can be made between the farmers of Western Pennsylvania who rebelled against the Federal Government under President George Washington, and today’s health care executives and medical practitioners who continue to oppose the public option in this years Health Care Bill.

In both cases you have a small group of individuals opposing what is best for the country.

In what could have split the new nation apart, General Washington personally led a militia of almost thirteen thousand (equal to the size of armies fighting battles of the Revolutionary War), into Western Pennsylvania to suppress the rebellion.

The result forever established the supremacy of Federal Power over local and state interests.

At issue was the complaint from a minority that certain Federal policies would impinge unfairly upon this select group of individuals. Today that would be our health care providers.

But the whiskey taxes that were levied, were a necessary means voted on by a majority of delegates, to pay off the Federal Debt that accumulated from the Revolutionary War.

For the benefit of everyone in this newly formed country, the debt had to be paid.. Unfortunately it fell unfairly on Western farmers.

Today the public option benefits everyone in this newly reformed country. We have learned as did our ancestors and founding fathers, that a weak Federal government aligned like under the Articles of Confederation, can not effectively govern… Nothing can be fair for everyone, and choices have to be made. Once done so, they need to be enforced…

We cannot lower health care costs for America’s businesses and individuals unless some type of competition becomes available to apply downward pressure to insurance and medical costs… The public option unfairly impinges on the wealthy executives of those two industries, just as the whiskey tax impinged on Western farmers. But the precedent of our first president, shows what needs to be done. Forceful action.

We need to take the fight … to them… not for political reasons… but to save the nation… No doubt, as America wakes up to the full implications of not having the public option, those wealthy perpetrators of this rebellion against better health care, will like their predecessors of the Whiskey Rebellion, go into hiding… After considerable effort was expended to round up the insurgents, only two were tried and sentenced to be hung. Eventually both were pardoned by President Washington because “one was simpleton, and the other insane. ”

One must be insane to go up against what is best for the American people…. This lesson of the past, should egg us onward that real change comes through contention, and that backing down against a minority who want their own self interests put above America’s welfare, is simply plainly un- American…

As an aside, a small benefit came about because of this rebellion… The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion also had the unintended consequences of encouraging small whiskey producers in Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. In these frontier areas, they also found good corn-growing country as well as limestone-filtered water and therefore began making whiskey from corn; this corn whiskey developed into Bourbon.

Thank heavens for unintended consequences.