The number of people enslaved by Muslims has been a hotly debated topic, especially when the millions of Africans forced from their homelands are considered.
Some historians estimate that between A.D. 650 and 1900, 10 to 20 million people were enslaved by Arab slave traders. Others believe over 20 million enslaved Africans alone had been delivered through the trans-Sahara route alone to the Islamic world.
Dr. John Alembellah Azumah in his 2001 book, The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa estimates that over 80 million Black people more died en route.
Arab Enslavers Practiced Genetic Warfare
The Arab slave trade typically dealt in the sale of castrated male slaves. Black boys between the age of 8 and 12 had their scrotums and penises completely amputated to prevent them from reproducing. About six of every 10 boys bled to death during the procedure, according to some sources, but the high price brought by eunuchs on the market made the practice profitable.
Some men were castrated to be eunuchs in domestic service and the practice of neutering male slaves was not limited to only Black males. “The calipha in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th Century had 7,000 black eunuchs and 4,000 white eunuchs in his palace,” writes author Ronald Segal in his 2002 book, Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora.
Arab Slave Trade Inspired Arab Racism Toward Blacks
Its important to note that Arab is not a racial classification; an Arab is almost like an American in that people classified as Arab today could be Caucasian (white people), Asiatic or even Arabized Africans. In the beginning there was some level of mutual respect between the Blacks and the more lighter skinned Arabs. However, as Islam and the demand for enslaved Blacks grew, so did racism toward Africans.
As casual association with Black skin and slave began to be established, racist attitudes towards Blacks began to manifest in Arabic language and literature. The word for slave – Abid – became a colloquialism for African. Other words such as Haratin express social inferiority of Africans.
Arab Enslavers Targeted Women For Rape
The eastern Arab slave trade dealt primarily with African women, maintaining a ratio of two women for each man. These women and young girls were used by Arabs and other Asians as concubines and menials.
A Muslim slaveholder was entitled by law to the sexual enjoyment of his slave women. Filling the harems of wealthy Arabs, African women bore them a host of children.
This abuse of African women would continue for nearly 1, 200 years.
Arab Slave Trade Ushered in The European Slave Trade
The Arab slave trade in the 19th century was economically tied to the European trade of Africans. New opportunities of exploitation were provided by the transatlantic slave trade and this sent Arab slavers into overdrive.
The Portuguese (on the Swahili coast) profited directly and were responsible for a boom in the Arab trade. Meanwhile on the West African coast, the Portuguese found Muslim merchants entrenched along the African coast as far as the Bight of Benin. These European enslavers found they could make considerable amounts of gold transporting enslaved Africans from one trading post to another, along the Atlantic coast.
The Arab Slave Trade Sparked One of The Largest Slave Rebellions in History
The Zanj Rebellion took place near the city of Basra, located in present-day southern Iraq, over a period of fifteen years (A.D. 869–883). The insurrection is believed to have involved enslaved Africans (Zanj) who had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa.
Basran landowners had brought several thousand East African Zanj people into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes in the east. The landowners forced the Zanj, who generally spoke no Arabic, into heavy slave labor and provided them with only minimal subsistence. The harsh treatment sparked an uprising that grew to involve over 500,000 enslaved and free men who were imported from across the Muslim empire.
Arab Enslavers Avoided Teaching Islam to Blacks to Justify Enslaving Them
According to some historians, Islam prohibited freeborn Muslims from being enslaved, so it was not in the interest for Arab slavers to convert enslaved Africans to the religion. Since converting enslaved Africans to Muslim would grant them more rights and reduce the potential reservoir of people to enslave, propagators of Islam often revealed a cautious attitude toward proselytizing Africans.
Still, if an African converted to Islam he was not guaranteed freedom nor did it confer freedom to their children. Only children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war could become slaves, never a freeborn Muslim.
The Arab Slave Trade Allowed More Upward Mobility Than the European Slave Trade
Upward mobility within the ranks of Arab slaves was not rare. Tariq ibn Ziyad – who conquered Spain and whom Gibraltar was named after – was a slave of the emir of Ifriqiya, Musa bin Nusayr, who gave him his freedom and appointed him a general in his army.
Son of an enslaved Ethiopian mother, Antarah ibn Shaddād, also known as Antar, was an Afro-Arabic man who was originally born into slavery. He eventually became a well-known poet and warrior. Extremely courageous in battle, historians have dubbed him the “father of knighthood … [and] chivalry” and “the king of heroes.”
This kind of upward mobility did not occur in the European slavery system.
Arab Slave Trade Not Limited To Africa or Skin Color
One of the biggest differences between the Arab slave trade and European slaving was that the Arabs drew slaves from all racial groups. During the eighth and ninth centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Europeans (called Saqaliba), captured along European coasts and during wars.
Aside from those of African origins, people from a wide variety of regions were forced into Arab slavery, including Mediterranean people; Persians; people from the Caucasus mountain regions (such as Georgia, Armenia and Circassia) and parts of Central Asia and Scandinavia; English, Dutch and Irish; and Berbers from North Africa.
There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.Harry J. Anslinger
If the racist pig Harry Anslinger were alive today, he would no doubt be in front of a Colorado House or Senate committee on regulating medical marijuana dispensaries, imploring the gathered politicians to ignore the will of the people and ban the wicked weed outright.
“There are today 25 million total marijuana smokers in the U.S.,” Anslinger might say, “and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Indians, Asian and entertainers who are the root cause of economic downturn in America. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
Actually, Anslinger did say that, and much more. With the help of the federal government, the states, DuPont, pharmaceutical companies and the Hearst newspaper chain, Anslinger sought to keep the heartbeat of Puritanism alive. He was the assistant Prohibition commissioner and then commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962.
Anslinger had a receptive audience in Jim Crow America, where apartheid was codified. Someone had to be blamed for the economic calamity that had overtaken the United States and the world in the 1930s. And Mexicans were streaming across the border, taking jobs that were scarce in states like Colorado.
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” Anslinger said.
Until that time, not much had been done legally in regard to marijuana. A few states had laws against the plant, but most were instituted as a means of keeping nonwhites down. Another means — as if they needed more tools — of making sure who knew who was boss.
A long history
A few years before the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, about 4,670 years before, actually, Shen Neng, the Chinese emperor, touted marijuana tea as a treatment for gout, rheumatism, malaria and, of all things, poor memory. Shen sounds like he could have been a pitchman on overnight cable TV with claims like that.
Even before Shen, in about 8,000 B.C.E., according to the Columbia History of the World, “the earliest known woven fabric was apparently hemp (marijuana).”
Hemp is the fibrous stalk of the cannabis plant. Marijuana is the flowers and leaves.
Hemp was used for clothing, oils, rope and many other useful items, as well as medicine and one must assume its powerful sister marijuana was used as a mood enhancer for religious and other purposes.
Marijuana is one of the five sacred plants mentioned in the Arthava Veda, a Hindu holy text. It’s certainly No. 1 for Rastafarians.
From 1,000 B.C.E. to 1883, according to “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” hemp was the planet’s largest agricultural crop, producing most of the world’s fiber, fabric, lighting oil, paper, paints and varnishes, incense and medicines. Marijuana also was one of the most widely used substances in many religions and cults — taken to manifest the spirit world and help users get closer to their maker.
The first hemp law in America was enacted in Jamestown Colony, Va., in 1619.
The law required farmers to grow Indian hempseed. Similar laws were enacted in Massachusetts in 1631, Connecticut in 1632, and in George Washington’s time the Virginia Constitution stated that a certain percentage of a plantation had to produce hemp.
Washington, Father of Our Country and presumably a person Harry Anslinger looked upon favorably, was said to be the largest hemp producer in the colonies. Benjamin Franklin started one of America’s first paper mills with cannabis.
According to the anti-drug Web site Narconon, “Marijuana was listed in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942 and was prescribed for various conditions including labor pains, nausea and rheumatism.”
In the 1880s, Turkish smoking rooms in the Northeast were the rage for a while. They were not smoking tobacco in these places.
From accounts by older Puebloans, their mothers and grandmothers would pick the ubiquitous weed along riverbeds and railroad tracks and use it as a cold medication and pain reliever.
The age of reform
It is estimated that in 1900, 2 to 5 percent of all Americans were addicted to opiates. Opiates and opium-based products were sold over the counter, and even soft drinks, such as Coca-Cola (cocaine), were loaded with what would now be considered Schedule 1 narcotics.
The “aughts” were a reformist, trust-busting age, the beginning of true regulation in the United States. The food industry was exposed by Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” and even college football caught the eyes of reformers, or “muckrakers” everywhere, in the spirit of improving the lot of ordinary Americans.
Over-the-counter medications and intoxicants were not spared from reform and banishment and, eventually, the U.S. launched into the ill-fated Prohibition period, from 1920 to 1933. All Prohibition did was make ordinary Americans criminals and give rise to real organized crime in this country.
But Prohibition sure made Harry Anslinger happy.
When the ban on booze finally ended, guys like Anslinger and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover needed something to keep them in work until they could conjure another menace to society.
Demon weed
Marijuana, which was largely used by minorities and musicians then, became that menace.
And William Randolph Hearst, who helped spark the Spanish-American War in 1898 with sensationalized reporting by his newspaper chain, helped Anslinger and others demonize marijuana.
The result was the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which Anslinger arranged to push through Congress after a single hearing. The only dissent heard in that session was from the head of the American Medical Association, who disputed Anslinger’s characterizations of the plant’s effects and the AMA’s position on it.
The act stated that to grow and sell marijuana, one must pay taxes. The first person arrested under the law, the day it was enacted, was a Denver man who was sentenced to four years of hard labor in Leavenworth (Kan.) Federal Prison for selling a couple of joints. The man who bought the marijuana served 18 months in prison for his part.
A now-hilarious but then-serious movie, “Reefer Madness,” helped scare the public further. But the movie fizzled and only became popular (especially with marijuana fans) when rediscovered in 1971.
Hearst also had financial and racial motivations. His hatred of Mexicans, whom he considered to be marijuana users to the man, was well-known. Pancho Villa had taken Hearst’s Mexican forests during the Mexican Revolution, and hemp also was a threat to Hearst’s U.S. forests as means for paper production.
Not everyone agreed with Anslinger and Hearst. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia commissioned a study by physicians and scientists that disputed Anslinger’s claims. It is documented that Anslinger hunted down each copy of the report and had it destroyed.
Red Scare practices
DuPont sparked legislation to outlaw hemp in the 1950s. DuPont had developed nylon in the mid-1930s and wanted to eliminate the use of hemp as a base for rope and clothing. Growing hemp is illegal in the U.S. under federal law due to its relation to marijuana, and any imported hemp products must meet a zero-tolerance level.
During the 1950s, Anslinger used Red Scare tactics to further demonize marijuana, saying the Chinese Communists were sending joints into the country to spread immorality among America’s youth.
“Marijuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing,” Anslinger said.
Anslinger finally retired in 1962, but his attitude about marijuana remained prevalent in the United States.
Until the late 1960s.
High times again
The times were changing indeed, and in the previous decade the Beats, the daddy-o’s of the hippies, used marijuana as part of their lifestyle. When, because of the Vietnam War and other reasons, much of the Baby Boom generation revolted, weed, pot or grass, or any of the many names marijuana was called, became a common part of their everyday life.
This development was not taken lightly, and President Richard Nixon lumped marijuana into the same category as heroin and LSD, much stronger drugs. Nixon had Mexican marijuana fields sprayed with paraquat, an herbicide that kills green plants on contact and also is toxic to humans.
Nixon ran as a law-and-order president, and he pushed for a war on drugs.
That war lasts to this day, costing the taxpayers billions. Marijuana is part of the war, even though polls now show that more than half of adults believe marijuana should be legal. That positive response is even higher in Western states.
Presidents since Nixon have followed his opposition to legalization, from Ronald Reagan’s wife Nancy’s “Just Say No To Drugs,” to Bill Clinton, who lawyerly said he didn’t inhale when he tried pot. Fourteen states have made medical marijuana legal, and the current president, Barack Obama, has ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency not to raid dispensaries in those states, a rare bit of states’ rights trumping federal power.
The battle rages and the result is unclear. It’s another cultural thing, apparently.
But one thing is clear: Marijuana was made illegal by subterfuge, racism, corporate greed and coercion.
Mostly led by a guy named Harry.
1910: “Marihuana is the most frightening and vicious drug ever to hit New Orleans.” —New Orleans Public Safety Commission
1920s: “Makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” —H.J. Anslinger, Bureau of Narcotics
1930: “Marihuana is responsible for the raping of white women by crazed negroes.” —Hearst Newspapers Nationwide
1932: “Hasheesh goads users to blood lust.” —Hearst Newspapers
1935: “Marihuana influenced negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows, and look at a white woman twice.” —Hearst Newspapers
1937: “Marihuana is the most violent drug in the history of mankind.” —Congressional Testimony, H.J. Anslinger, FBN
1938: “Marihuana is more dangerous than heroin or cocaine.” —Anslinger, Scientific American, May, 1938
1938: “If the hideous monster of Frankenstein came face to face with marihuana, he would drop dead of fright.” —Anslinger, FBN, quoted in Hearst newspaper
1937-50: “Negro entertainers with their jazz and swing music are declared an outgrowth of marihuana use which possesses white women to tap their feet.” —statements to Congress by Anslinger, FBN
1945: “More harmful than habit-forming opium, inducing fits of temporary insanity.” —Newsweek, 1-15-45
1946: “Marihuana is an important cause of crime.” —Bureau of Narcotics, Newsweek, 11-18-46
1948: “Marihuana leads to pacifism and Communist brainwashing.” —Anslinger, before Congress
1973: “Marijuana increases breast size in males.”
1974: “Permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana.” —Ronald Reagan, LA Times
1974: “interferes with reproduction, disease resistance, and basic biological processes.” —Daily Oklahoman, 11-19-74
1980: “Marijuana leads to harder drugs.” —Reagan Administration
1985: “Marijuana use makes you sterile.” —Reagan Administration
1980s: “Marijuana leads to heroin; marijuana causes brain damage.” —the 17-week D.A.R.E. Program
1986: “Marijuana leads to homosexuality, the breakdown of the immune system, and therefore to AIDS.” —Carlton Turner
1990: “Marijuana makes you lazy.” —Partnership for a Drug-Free America
August 27, 2009 – People have used marijuana since before the beginning of recorded history. It is known to have been used thousands of years before the birth of Christ and its use was legal for the vast majority of that time. It was legal in the United States until the early 1900′s, when a campaign of lies and propaganda brought about its prohibition. Recently many prominent people, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo have advocated the legalization of marijuana, or at the very least having a national discussion on that possibility.
Many people have come to realize that if marijuana were legalized, regulated, and taxed many of the problems caused by its prohibition could be erased, and tens of billions in revenue could be generated. Thousands die yearly in accidents or due to health related problems resulting from the use of alcohol, yet it is legal, and it should be. It is the responsibilty of those who choose to use it to do so responsibly. Shouldn’t the same common sense rules apply to marijuana?
This is the first article in a series which will expose the truth behind the passage of our nation’s foolish laws governing the use of marijuana, the harm those laws cause, and why it should be legalized. In this article I’m going to look at the reasons marijuana was outlawed in the U.S. One might imagine that solid scientific evidence was used, or that factual accounts of criminal activity attributed to its use and a legitimate concern for public safety may have compelled our government to criminalize marijuana. Not so. In fact much of the so called evidence that was used had no basis whatsoever in fact. Racist propaganda was used to stir up anger. Incompetent and corrupt politicians and government officials spurred by greed, the prospect of personal gain, and the hope of career advancement were a major force behind the movement to ban its use, possession and cultivation. Horrible tales of ruthless violence, including brutal murders and vicious gang rapes were totally fabricated in order to frighten the public and gain support for anti-marijuana laws.
The first marijuana law in America was passed more than 150 years before we declared our independence, but it wasn’t intended to restrict marijuana. In 1619 a law was enacted at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia that actually required farmers to grow Indian hempseed. Over the next 200 years there were several laws passed making its cultivation mandatory. In fact between 1763 and 1767 you could be jailed in Virginia for not growing it.
Of course it was not being grown just so early settlers could get high. Hemp had many uses at the time. It was used for rope, clothing, and food, among other things. The census of 1850 showed there were more than 8,000 hemp plantations in the country that grew a minimum of 2,000 acres of the plant.
It was the early 1900′s before marijuana began to be seen as a problem. California was the first state to pass a law outlawing the “preparations of marijuana, or loco weed.” At the time there was tension near the Mexican border due to the revolution in that country. Violence as a result of the revolution sometimes spilled over the border. Many people in the American west were also angry that large farms were using cheap Mexican labor which hurt smaller farms. The fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana was used to help pass the law in California, not based on facts or science, but on the anti-Mexican sentiment that existed among many people at the time. The law was intended more to target Mexicans than to protect the public from marijuana’s “harmful” effects.
At around the same time Utah also outlawed marijuana. According to Charles Whitebread, a Professor of Law at the University of Southern California Law School, Mormons returned to Salt Lake City from Mexico with marijuana in 1910. Church leaders were not at all happy with its use by members of the Mormon Church. Whitebread speculates that may be one of the reasons Utah outlawed marijuana, althought some members of the Mormon community dispute his theory.
Several other states used the racial prejudice towards Mexicans to help pass laws against marijuana. Wyoming was first in 1915, followed by Texas in 1919, Iowa, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Arkansas in 1923, and Nebraska and Montana in 1927. In Texas a State Senator promoted the outlawing of marijuana by saying, “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff is what makes them crazy.” The Butte Montana Standard quoted a Montana lawmaker’s statement on the floor of the Montana Legislature: “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.”
In the eastern states racist statements were also used to turn public sentiment in favor of making marijuana illegal. It was said by one newspaper editorialist to “influence black men to actually look into the eyes of white men, and look twice at white women.” Oh, the travesty!
In the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote that “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.” Within a very short time, marijuana started to be linked to insanely violent behavior.
In 1930 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was established as a new division of the Treasury Department. Harry J. Anslinger was named as its first director. Anslinger’s ambition rather than facts was behind his campaign to outlaw marijuana. He saw it as an issue that could be seized upon to further his own career. Anslinger knew he could create a national crisis by using racism and claims of brutally violent crimes to draw national attention to the “horrific problems” caused by using marijuana.
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US,” said Anslinger, “and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.” This wasn’t Anslinger’s only completely ludicrous statement. He also claimed that “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” If you do a little research into Anslinger you will find many such ridiculous statements.
As late as 1961 Anslinger spoke about his efforts to outlaw marijuana, and still used propaganda and completely false stories to justify them:
“Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado a husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded by the smoking of one or more marijuana “reefers.” As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps. First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts. I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides.”
Randolf Hearst, owner of chain of newspapers, also campaigned against marijuana. While Anslinger’s motive was ambition, Hearst’s was profit and bigotry. It is fairly well known that Hearst held strong anti-Mexican views. This was probably due to his loss of more than 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa during the Mexican revolution. He had also invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and wanted to stop the development of hemp paper. Spreading terrible lies about Mexicans, and claiming marijuana caused extreme acts of violence sold newspapers. That not only made him money, but helped insure that hemp production would be halted.
Some of Hearst’s newspapers made ridiculous claims about marijuana. One column in the San Francisco Examiner said that “Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days, Hashish goads users to bloodlust. By the tons it is coming into this country, the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that the claims made by Anslinger and Hearst are far more dangerous than marijuana could ever be. Such statements themselves encourage racist views and could have easily incited acts of violence against blacks and Mexicans. Since it is impossible to overdose on marijuana, and not a single death has ever been cited as the medical cause of any person’s death, there is one absolute and undeniable certainty. More violence has been caused, and more lives have been destroyed by the campaign against marijuana, and the laws that came about as a result of it, than by the drug itself.
If you want to point to the crime and violence surrounding the drug trade in America, you can trace it all right back to the beginning of the war on marijuana that was started during the first half of the 20th century by dishonest politicians, corrupt government officials, and the greed and racism of figures in the corporate world.
The Drug War is a Race War Liberals need to keep pounding on the fact that the Drug War is a Republican instituted race war.
Criminalizing drugs has always been a means of targeting and controlling racial, ethnic, and social minorities.
The Chinese laborers who came to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad smoked opium. Negroes in the old south sniffed cocaine when it was cheaper than alcohol. Mexicans brought their marihuana with them when they migrated into the Southwest. And, according to Smack: Heroin and the American City, heroin was "Originally popular among working-class whites in the 1920s."
They've all been criminalized.
The biggest racist of them all was Harry J. Anslinger.
Anslinger was Assistant Prohibition Commissioner when he saw the future in 1930: repeal of alcohol prohibition meant repeal of his job.
A career tax-sucking bureaucrat, Anslinger was desperate to find himself another cushy government ride.
What he found was marijuana. His strategy was to get the government to criminalize the Devil Weed and his tactic was blatant fear-mongering racism.
He toured the country preaching social Armageddon wherever he could raise a white audience.
"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." - Testimony to US Congress supporting Marihuana Tax Act, 1937.
Other documented Anslinger racist quotes are:
"Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice."
"Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men."
"Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with female students (white) smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result pregnancy."
White America pressured the government into outlawing this "most dangerous and deadly drug known to man" and Anslinger's bureau-buddies got him appointed America's first Drug Czar.
The racism continues today.
"While drug use is consistent across all racial groups," says the Drug Policy Alliance, "Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison. Nationally, Latinos comprise almost half of those arrested for marijuana offenses."
The racist drug war must end! Republicans must be put down.
Hells' Mary Bells! A newappfor the iPhone allows sinners to makeaninstantconfession. The *official* Catholic Church asks the hard questions; you spill the beans.
Using their examination criteria, here's my confession, the first one I've made in many many years:
1st Commandment: I am the LORD your God. Thou shall not have strange Gods before me.
Do I not give God time every day in prayer? I most certainly do not....well sometimes during my orgasms...I guess....I call the lord's name in vain.
Do I not seek to love Him with my whole heart?
I do not. I am an atheist, a lapsed Irish Roman Catholic brought up in the American church of the 1990s when we protested the war and the nuns took their habits off and the priests ran away to become gay liberationists. I named my life story Big Sex Little Death, which is definitely for Catholic tastes.
Have I been involved in superstitious practices? No....Unless you call Republican bashing to be superstitious
Do I not seek to surrender myself to God's Word?No....NO...I surrender to my Master Husband and to online Doms.
Have I ever received Communion in a state of Mortal sin?
The last time I went to confession I was seven years old and the most tearful sin I had on my conscience was my silent anger at my mother and her rules. I also loved the Beatles and Michael Jackson and Cliff Richard and I knew our parish didn't approve.
Have I ever deliberately told a lie in confession or withheld a mortal sin?
No. I won't start here, either.
2nd Commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in Vain
Have I used God's name in vain? Yes.
Have I been angry with God?
Is that like being angry with your imaginary friend?
Have I wished evil upon another person?
Towards unholy dictators and figureheads, Racist Republicans... I guess so. I would call this wish, "hostility on public figures who are bad actors."
Have I wished evil upon another person? Evil is imaginary, like God.
Have I insulted a sacred person or abused a sacred object? Yes.!!!
Does a giant rosary hanging amusingly from my bedroom wall count?
3rd Commandment: Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day
Have I deliberatly missed Mass on Sunday? Yes!
Have I tried to observe Sunday as a family day and day of rest?
I sure try.
Do I do needless work on Sunday? Lamentably, I do.
4th Commandment: Honor thy father and mother
Have I neglected my duties to my husband and children?No.
Have I not given my family good religious example?
I think my religious education efforts have been exemplary.
Do I try not to bring peace to my family life?
On the contrary, I try a lot. I like peace.
Do I not care for my aged and infirm relatives?
I care, and am there, and it is heartbreaking.
5th Commandment: Thou shalt not kill
Have I had an abortion or encouraged anyone to have an abortion?
Yes, Yes.
I can't believethisis the FIRST question on a 5th Commandment list!
Have I physically harmed anyone? No.
Have I abused alcohol or drugs?
As in "killing" someone? Jesus, what isthisdoing in the 5th? A hangover question? However, my Polly Purebred answer is still no. Drugs aren't my weakness.
Did I give scandal to anyone, leading them into sin?
By your insinuation, I hope so.
Have I been angry or resentful?
Yes. You got me. I'm taking years off my life with it, too.
Have I harbored hatred in my heart?
I hate to admit this. Yes. Finally, the one question in this entire examination that causes me guilt and pain.
Have I mutilated myself through sterilzation?
What's with the language here? I have made it impossible for my uterus to get pregnant, yes. I don't regard that as mutilation.
Have I encouraged sterilization or condoned it?Of course.
6th Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery
Have I been fiathful to my marriage in thought and action?
I'm loyal, but monogamy is not our litmus test.
Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity? Yes.
Have I used any method of contraception? All of them!
Have the sexual acts in my mariage always been open to the transmission of new life?
'Fraid not!
Have I been guilty of masturbation? As charged.
Have I not sought to control my thoughts? Not the sexual ones, no.
Have I not respected all members of the opposite sex— or have I thought of other people as objects?
I have respected everyone's dignity and humanity, regardless of gender. I don't think we're so "opposite."
What's with the Dworkinite postcript on this? The notion of "people as objects" is inane; it isn't biblical. I would be a lunatic to confuse you with a chair, for example.
I guess this phrase means, "Have I ever gazed upon an image of someone and had a sexual fantasy about them?" Yes, and it is the most human thing in the world.
Do I seek to be chaste?Certainly not.
Am I not careful to dress modestly?
I take care to dress with great impact.
7th Commandment: Thou shalt not steal
Have I stolen what is not mine?
No. Okay, so I still have your cute earrings. But you know that.
Have I not returned or avoided making restitituion for what I have stolen? N/A
Do I waste time at work, school, or home? Yes. Time Bandit!
Do I gamble excessively?
Not at all. I didn't realize it was okay to gamble "a little"! But it's not my thing.
Do I avoid paying my debts promptly?
I wish I could avoid them entirely, but I am intimidated.
Do I not seek to share what I have with the poor?
I'm a big sharer. It's the most "Roman Catholic" part of me. I'm impressed that the app-priests remembered to put this at the very END of their list. It should be at the top.
8th Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor
Have I lied? It's unavoidable. But I'm telling the truth here.
Have I gossiped? Playfully.
Have I spoken behind someone's back? To my confidants, yes.
Am I insincere in my dealings with others?No. Terrible at faking that.
Am I critical, negative, or uncharitable in my thoughts of others?
In a bratty way, yes. But in serious terms, I more the empathetic type.
Do I keep secret what should be kept confidential? Yes.
9th Commandment: Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife
Have I consented to impure thoughts?The very best kind! Thanks to my slave training....I did covet someone's wife...not my fault really.!!!
Have I caused them by impure reading, movies, conversations, or curiousity? Every day! every waking moment!.
What is this, my job description?
Do I allow myself to lose control of my imagination?
WOW. I *live* to lose control of my imagination.
Do I avoid prayer to banish impure thoughts and tempataions?
I relish poetry to improve them.
(But what about "my neighbor's wife"? "Do husbands count too?" The priests forgot to ask! Idocovet her & him. Her name is Kathy. She is awesome). and his name is Jim...he is awesome too...My husband knows all about it...and approves it...He is after all my Master....
10th Commandment: Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's goods
Am I jealous of what other people have?
Well, darn it, yes. But it passes quickly.
Do I envy the families or possessions of others?
When I am feeling sorry for myself, yes.
Am I greedy or selfish? Greedy, no. Selfish, yes.
Are material possessions the purpose of my life?
No. But that was never a source of esteem in my family.
Do I not trust in God will care for all my material and spiritual needs?
I didn't know this was an option! Please forward His address so I can mail the bills and my grocery list!
Although the trend away from almost unanimous support began in theBush Administration, there was no serious defection of the GOP faithful until 2009.
Of course, the Democrats have been known to play partisan football with the debt ceiling also.
Since March1962, Congress has enacted 74 separate measures that have altered the limit on federal debt. Most of these changes in the debt limit were, measured in percentage terms, small in comparison to changes adopted in wartime or during theGreat Depression. Somerecent increases in the debt limit, however, were large in dollar terms. For instance, in May 2003, the debt limit increased by $984 billion.
[...] The Senateleadership expressed strong reluctance to include a debt limit increase in the supplemental appropriation bill. Instead, on June 11 [2002], the Senate adopted a bill (S. 2578), without debate, to raise the debt limit by $450 billion to $6,400 billion. At that time, a $450 billion debt limit increase was thought to provide enough borrowing authority for government operations through the rest of calendar year 2002, if not through the summer of 2003. With the possibility of default looming over it, the House passed the $450 billion debt limit increase by a single vote on June 27.The Presidentsigned the bill into law on June 28 (P.L. 107-199, 116 Stat. 734), ending the 2002 debt limit crisis.27
[...] The Senatereceived the debt-limit legislation on April 11 [2003], but did not act until May 23, after receiving further Treasury warnings of imminent default. On that day, debt subject to limit was $25 million (or 0.0004%) below the existing $6,400 billion limit.The Senateadopted the legislation, after rejecting eight amendments and sent it to the President, who signed it on May 27. This legislation raised the debt limit to $7,384 billion (P.L. 108-24, 117 Stat. 710).
[...]
After the elections,Senator Frist, on November 16, 2004, introduced legislation (S. 2986) to raise the debt limit by $800 billion, from $7,384 billion to $8,184 billion.The Senateapproved the increase on November 17, 2004.The Houseconsidered and approved the increase on November 18.The Presidentsigned the legislation into law (P.L. 108-415, 118 Stat. 2337) on November 19, 2004. Estimates made at that time anticipated the new limit would be reached between August and December 2005.
Table 2. Increases in theDebt Limit Since January2000 Date andChange From Previous Limit ($ billion)
June 28, 2002 $450
May 27, 2003 $984
Nov. 19, 2004 $800
Mar. 20, 2006 $781
Sept. 29, 2007 $850
July 30, 2008 $800
Oct. 3, 2008 $700
Feb. 17, 2009 $789
Dec. 28, 2009 $29 Between August1997, when the debt limit was raised to $5,950 billion, and the beginning of FY2002 in October 2001, federal budget surpluses reduced debt held by the public. From the end of FY2001, the last fiscal year with a surplus, until the end of FY2008, debt held by the public subject to limit grew by $2,484 billion.
Republican emailing with pictures of all the presidents. Obama's square is just a black space with two eyeballs.
It's perfectly OK to be a racist in the Republican Party, as long as you keep it 'in house' and pass it off as a joke.
By Ted McLaughlin Before the mid-sixties,the dominant political party in the South (and in Texas) was the Democratic Party. In fact, at that time, most of those states had virtually a one-party system. I know that in Texas, the only real election was in the Democratic primary, because the November election was a foregone conclusion. Republicans didn't have a chance.
But that changed in the mid-sixties, when President Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats stepped up, bit the bullet, and did the right thing by passing the civil rights laws. It was badly needed and long overdue, but it was also disastrous for the Democratic Party in the South. Sadly, there were still a lot of racists in Texas and the South at that time, and they fled en masse to the Republican Party.
With the addition of this huge volume of racists, the Republican Party in the South not only became competitive, but became the dominant party of the region. It is still that way, although due to changing attitudes the Democrats are now starting to become more competitive in Texas and many Southern states, as more and more whites shed their racism.
But while white racists fled the Democratic Party in the late Sixties, African-Americans flocked to that party. Even to this date, it is not uncommon for African-Americans to vote for Democrats in a block -- many times voting 90-95% Democratic in elections.
Republicans have pushed forward their tokens like Alan Keyes and Michael Steele, trying to give the impression they are a "big tent" party. Then they are amazed that these tokens aren't able to attract African-Americans to their party. They haven't figured out that the tokenism won't work as long as their party harbors and accepts a rabidly racist element.
They not only harbor these racists, but in many instances they allow them to assume positions of power and influence in the party. A couple of fresh instances of this came to light just in the last week.
In South Carolina, a prominent GOP activist named Rusty DePassresponded to a Facebook comment about a gorilla escaping a Columbia zoo by remarking, "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors -- probably harmless."
When called to task on this incrediby racist remark, his only defense was "The comment was clearly in jest." He thinks it's OK to be racist, as long as its funny. Well, it's not OK, and it shows just how accepting of racists and racism the Republican Party has become.
Meanwhile in Tennessee, Sherri Goforth, a legislative staffer for Republican State Senator Diane Black, e-mailed a little racist humorto some others in her party. It was a poster that had been knocking around the internet for a while among right wing racists. It shows pictures of all the presidents of the United States -- all but President Obama. Obama's square is just a black space with two eyeballs.
Was Ms. Goforth embarrassed by her obviously racist action? Not in the least. She was just upset because she accidently sent the e-mail to some who weren't racists and she got exposed. She said, “I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button. I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”
It's perfectly OK to be a racist in the Republican Party, as long as you keep it "in house" and pass it off as a joke. These are not the only instances of Republican racism. There have been many others, like the poster showing the White House lawn turned into a watermelon patch. Is it any wonder that most African-Americans (and other minorities) don't feel comfortable in the Republican Party -- the party that accepts such behavior from its members?
With each succeeding generation, the United States becomes a little less racist. Added to the fact that many whites are shedding their racist tendencies, is the fact that in many parts of this country, the majority of the population is now composed of minorities. Both of these trends are going to continue, and that's bad news for the Republican Party.
The Republican Party must face its internal racism and get rid of it. Failure to do so will ensure they become a party of little significance in the future, and could result in their demise. Dump the racism or go the way of the Whigs! --------------------------------- It is certainly no crime to depict the bizarre ideas that nature inspires.”
~Marquis de Sade
The Arab Slave Trade Sparked One of The Largest Slave Rebellions in History
