A Solution Made Into A Problem

Our nation is currently and has for some time been in a war that hasn't seemed to make any headway. No I'm not talking about the war on terrorism or the fact that Obama has decided to send an additional 35,000 troops into Afghanistan; I'm talking about the ongoing and most definitely futile war on marijuana. There was a recent NPR news story titled California Officials Target Big Marijuana Growers.

The story and it's reporter Mandalit Del Barco discuss the growing trend in California, and in particular Humboldt County, and the fact that the production and sale whether legal or illegal is a quickly rising commodity in California today. She speaks to several California representatives including: enforcement agents of the group CAMP, or (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting), retired Humboldt County Sheriff's Lt. Steve Cobine, Jack Nelsen of California's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, District Attorney Paul Gallegos, Humboldt County Sheriff Gary Philip, and even a local college student Lydia Katz. All of the people Mandalit interviews have ranging opinions but one opinion seems to be fairly predominate; marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed in it's entirety.

Of course there are many factors causing this action, which could quite possibly not only pull the U.S. out of a financial crisis but also create an entirely new job market not to mention a whole new type of viable natural resource. To begin, there is still a very widespread market within the states that have decriminalized marijuana for the illegal growth and sale of marijuana. A few of the representatives Mandalit interviews discuss the fact that though there are upwards of 1,000 different places within Los Angeles alone in which anyone with a Prop. 215 card can purchase marijuana legally, which is almost everyone who applies for it, drug trafficking cartels produce and sell hundreds of thousands of plants in any given grow. Jack Nelsen states that in California, "the marijuana business exploded after voters passed Proposition 215." This poses a slight, yet resolvable, problem on the regulation of marijuana.

The main factor in the regulation, taxing, and legal sale of marijuana lies within the federal government's unwillingness to nationally legalize the plant. Even Humboldt County Sheriff's Sgt. Wayne Hanson states, "Part of me wants marijuana legalized because it would take away the wealth, greed, and violence." He goes on to say that the problem is, "it would have to be legalized in all of the U.S., not just California....otherwise you would just have all the riffraff coming in to make money to sell to the other states."

Marijuana has for years, basically since just before 1970, been looked down on legally as a drug which can be abused like any other and a burden on our society although a vast number of American citizens beg to differ. Yes marijuana is most widely used as a means of getting high but lets look at the underlying facts. Marijuana is not nor has it ever been addictive. It is also the only drug which has no statistical record of being a sole cause of violent acts. Marijuana is the only drug in which it is impossible to overdoes on and is also the only drug which serves purposes outside of it's use for it's mind altering chemicals. To start, marijuana has been proven to be used for medicinal purposes. It is the only naturally occurring drug that is widely used today to cure and/or relieve a wide range different ailments including cancer. Marijuana is also the only drug which it's byproducts can be broken down and used to manufacture a variety of useful products for society. Hemp is used all over the world and it oils are even sold in skin care products, it can be used to make rope or other fabrics to create clothes and has even been used in the past to make a form of paper. In short, marijuana has almost unlimited uses and the idea that we as a society are not utilizing everyone of them is absurd.

In conclusion, the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana could provide for so many outs for not only the citizens of the U.S. and it's marijuana users, but also the U.S. as a whole. The solutions to the various problems our country is currently facing that could be so easily solved by the simple national decriminalization of one little plant are vast. Not only could it save us a ton of grief in the future but it could also stabilize our economy and provide for several different benefits for citizens across the nation and who knows, maybe this one little plant could help bring peace within a nation that could certainly use it.

A Definitive Need For Change

In an October 30 post from the My thoughts As A New Citizen blog, the writer discusses the need for the passing of the American Clean Energy And Security Act by the Senate. She, the writer, discusses how this new bill proposes and cap and trade system and government regulation on the amount of greenhouse gases we will be allowed to emit as a nation annually. She also states that as the American nation is responsible for 82 percent of energy-related carbon emissions, we have a pretty big responsibility in doing our part to reduce this number. Later, she discusses how over the years 2012 to 2050, the time frame the government has set as expectations for real results, the average American household should expect to pay about $170 a year on energy costs by 2020. Finally the writer concludes stating that although the economic factor involved in the bill could pose a problem in certain aspects, the long term affects and problems we could face if we continue the way we are could be far more costly and devastating. She finalizes with the very hard hitting statement, "It seems to me that the consequences can be so severe; we might be having a much larger issue with our health care than what we are experiencing now."

I am in a complete and utter agreement with the writer of this article. She covers and discusses some very key points in the subject of this hopefully nearly established bill and issue it pertains to. Our carbon footprint is astonishing. Not only does it have a widespread and devastating affect on our country as a whole but more importantly, the world as well. In a separate article from the Encyclopedia Of Earth (eoearth) website, the lead writer Maggie Walser points out that the average North American's annual carbon footprint is approximately 20 tons of CO2-eq while the global average of a single human is about 4 tons. She also states that 82 percent of all global carbon emissions come directly from fossil fuel combustion; i.e. automotive transportation, particular factory run industries, home heating/cooling systems, or various other luxuries we don't take a second to consider the affects of on our environment as Americans. In short, we as a country have failed the protection of our one and only ecological system miserably and if we do not act soon with some kind of reparation and/or conservation plan for action, we may not have a very distant future ahead of us not only as a nation but as a planet.

A Country Against Itself

Since the 2008 election there has been much debate, or argument, about whether the elected president Obama will be able to hold up to his promises made during his campaign and whether or not he is on the right track to accomplishing his goals as our newly elected commander and chief. Many citizens, news articles, and main stream media hosts have argued that he in fact cannot, will not, and has not thus far lived up to our expectations while many others argue quite the opposite. Many accusations have been made against our new president, many of which have over time proved to be full of nothing but fallacies. One of these false accusations directed towards the president was that the president planned to immediately pull a large number, if not all, of our troops out of Iraq to bring them home. This was simply a misconception by the hopeful but ill informed American citizens. Although his plan was to in fact pull a large number of troops out of Iraq, a huge part of the campaign was in doing so to transfer them to Afghanistan where he and several other chiefs of staff believed the war on terrorism should have been all along. A few other serious misconceptions, I discovered in an August 22 White House press release, made by the American people in regards to their expectations of president Obama were things like illegal immigrants being covered by his new health care reform, abortions funded by the taxpayers money, reform leading to entire governmental take over of our health care, and "death panels" being formed to decide who receives health care treatment and benefits. Most of these are chalked up to outrageous rumors but when a rumor is taken seriously by a large enough group of people, it can lead to an out of control uprising and unruly mass of emotionally driven citizens. I firmly believe that president Obama is doing, has done, and will continue to do a better than fair job in office and strive to act upon not only what is ethically and morally in the best interests of our country, but will do the same for people the world over as a whole. If one takes a minute to look to media outside of our own propaganda driven American media, they will see that many other countries are applauding Mr. Obama for the role he has taken in building the peace and strengthening the relationship between our international allies and friends the world over. A man that is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is surely doing something right, in whatever his pursuits may be. I commend him, though I may not always agree with him, on the job he has done for our country and other thus far as our first black president of the United States, which is surely a heavy weight to carry in terms of responsibility and expectations.

Enough Is Never Enough

In an Counter Punch blog article entitled Where $18 An Hour Is Too Much, the author Carl Ginsburg discusses what he calls a problem in the pay rate of the New York baking factory's workers. He states that apparently America cannot afford to pay these workers $18 an hour, which he says totals to $2,300 a month. Ginsburg goes on to discuss the fact that New York's homeless population is at an all time high at about 120,000 women, men, and children. He continues stating that, "Barack Obama believes in banks over jobs." He says that president Obama would have these workers believe that, "growth in the GDP will free up markets, loosen credit, and create good jobs...", but states that this is a "one-sided belief" and will not create jobs for many years to come. He finalizes talking about how on the COBRA health care plan, the government covers 65% of workers premiums for up to nine months but still leaves hundreds of dollars monthly for the workers to cover on their own to pay the insurance company. He states that it is for these reasons that so many Americans qualify for food stamps due to that fact that these workers will not find a living wage job for some time to come. From the beginning of the article, Ginsburg makes his seemingly very biased view point fairly difficult to understand. Though he covers several factors on the matter being discussed, his method of writing and order in which he discusses these topics are very scatter brained and difficult to keep up with. He does not give a very smooth flow between paragraphs which makes it fairly hard to understand what point he is trying to make, and about what matter his point is covering. He opens discussing that the baking factory workers pay was cut from $18 an hour to "only" $14 an hour. This is a very biased and one-sided mind set to be thinking on and does not allow much room for other ideas of solutions to what Ginsburg believes to be a serious problem. He definitely takes a strict New Yorker's view point approach to his writing and doesn't seem to have even considered the fact there may be several other options. Why couldn't these unemployed workers move out of state or even to another city if the living conditions are so difficult for them? New York seems to be far beyond over populated anyways, and it seems to me that this idea could possibly be a kill two birds with one stone solution. Ginsburg comes off even more biased when he states Barack Obama favors banks over jobs and calling Obama's belief in the GDP's growth a solution to job, credit, and market problems "a simplistic and one-sided proposition at best...". It seems to me that over all Ginsburg has not put much thought into what his is writing about other than his own personal opinions and doesn't seems to think that there can be any other view point outside of what he discusses.

Where IS The War Leading Us?

In a September 27, 2009 article entitled Where The War Is Leading Us, the author Ruben Navarrette discusses President Obama's plans for moving troops into Afghanistan and how these efforts appear to be changing over time. Navarrette begins stating that it seems that the president has little faith in his newly appointed top U.S. military commander and doesn't care for the General's opinions on warfare matters. The author goes on discussing how General McChrystal has asked for 45,000 additional troops to prevent failure of the Afghanistan efforts despite a difference of opinions within the White House. Navarrette concludes by stating that the support of the war by American citizens has dropped to an all time low of 39% and questions why the president is doing nothing to back the military with what it needs to do what is necessary in what the president called a "war of necessity." It seems that Navarrette's intended audience for this article is anyone who is willing to listen to and consider his stand on the topic. Although it is not a completely opinionated and/or biased article, his credibility as a political writer is questionable at best when read. He seems to be very favorable of the war in Afghanistan and definitely has biased against the president and his plan of action. Throughout the article, Navarrette makes a few very logical and evidence supported points although the evidence backing them could be considered very semantical and somewhat contrived. Through the passage, Navarrette continues to make statements to the effect that president Obama is not doing what he has stated he plans to do but doesn't seem to take any consideration into how long it may take to put forth these actions through Congress and the amount of time it takes to pass an action like this in U.S. government. Navarrette's claims that Obama is not living up to his standards or doing what he needs to in order to ensure the United State's safety come off very opinionated, non concrete evidence supported, and very biased against the president's short- lived actions in office up to this point.

Reform For The Whole

A September 12, 2009 article I read on BBC News talked about protests over President Obama's health care reform plans. It also gave a brief summary of current and possible future health care costs under President Obama's plan.
The article opens with a bold caption stating, "Tens of thousands of people have marched from the White House to Capitol Hill in Washington to protest against Barack Obama's health care reforms." It goes on to discuss a Minneapolis rally in which the president hoped to boost supporters and gave a brief quote from the rally. The article continues stating that the president's administration was attacked outside of Washington over these reforms and "out-of-control-spending." It states that the USA's current health care costs are over 2 trillion dollars annually. Lastly, it concludes with a summary of the costs, in the area of 900 billion dollars, and of President Obama's health care plan also stating that the president said his doors are open for other serious reform ideas.
I believe this article covers a very pressing current national topic and issue and is something that every adult United States citizen should be concerned with. I think the article is at least somewhat unbiased, which can be hard to find, and can be informative to someone less knowledgeable on the topic. This issue could very well affect all American's; the health care plan could provide insurance to those who are currently uninsured and/or could raise or decrease the current private insurance costs.