Last year saw a 15% rise in executions around the world, although these stats from Amnesty International do not include China, which kills more people than all the other countries combined, so the figures are not really indicative of the total scope of violence.
Thirty-nine people were executed in the USA alone, putting us fifth on the list of barbaric states, of which only 22 are left on earth. All but one of our executions was done by lethal injection, which involves a sedative, followed by a paralyzing agent and then a heart stopper. (In recent history, the most executions occurred when Bill Clinton was President. Although remembered as somewhat compassionate, as Paul Krassner pointed out on Abakus the other day, Clinton stopped off to view the execution of a mentally damaged person on the way to his own own coronation, which is a really bizarre way to start a major ceremony unless, of course, it’s the dark side you’re worshipping.)
Here are the top five in order of kills: China (unknown); Iran (369); Iraq (160); Saudi Arabia (79); United States (39). Probably the most horrifying execution last year was Iranian peace poet Hashem Shaabani, hanged after five months of torture in which he was made to confess to many outrageous lies when his real crime was producing a peace festival and publishing poems critical of the ruling regime.
I believe 420 should be a ceremony of peace, simply because pot is the sacrament of peace culture and always has been, which is why you find spiritual cultures attached to it whenever you find the plant. If you make 420 about getting stoned, that leaves out all the people who no longer wish to get intoxicated, or who have a problem with intoxication. But if you make 420 about peace and respecting non-violence, then everyone is invited to attend.
Violence has been on the decline in most of the civilized world for centuries, but in the USA we have a problem with it. And we also have a lot of victims suffering from PTSD, most of whom do not have access to the best possible medicine for that disorder, which, of course, is cannabis. But when you hold ceremonies of peace, they help heal that PTSD. This is the spiritual-medicine connection Western science has been slow to pick up on. And you don’t have to be a victim of violent crime or even a soldier returning from the front to have PTSD. You can get it from playing violent video games and watching violent media content all day long for months, while popping ritalin and Prozac.
So when you think about your 420 ceremony this year, why not have a moment of silence for the thousands of people executed last year, and maybe put out a prayer the last 22 barbaric nations on earth will surrender the practice of murdering their own citizens? And maybe even another prayer that a future generation will emerge to turn against all the violence programming that’s been fed to our kids for the last fifty years.
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Chakra-Candles/dp/B00BVMZ8U8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415013461&sr=8-1&keywords=candles+Steven+hager
Everything You Know is Twisted
When Rainbow Farms was raided on Labor day weekend before 911 (as you are well aware of) , President Bush was less than 50 miles away talking with the Michigan Labor Union about some new economic stimulus package. There was a single photo taken by the Press Secretary in the newspaper that showed G.W.Bush surrounded by Union Members waving tiny little American flags, and centered on a little boy of Arab nationality waving one too…,how odd? I thought about the photo very often after the invasion of the middle east, after the 3 World Trade Center buildings were brought down. All the rubble was removed by guess who.., ‘The Labor Union’. All evidence of any demolitions was gone and the site had been, ‘scrubbed’ according to independent expert investigators. Both men, owners of Rainbow Farm had been surrounded, and then murdered, by 100s of FBI agents, plus local and state police. Rollie Rolhms’ testicles had been removed. According to the coroner at the Zimmerman Funeral home…, from being kicked off! While she concluded that the 26 year old Rollie Rolhm had officially died from the loss of blood / from a single small caliber gunshot wound to the neck. An injury considered to have been non-life threatening if only he had received medical attention within an couple of hours. Rolhm was brought into the funeral home with hand cuffs still on , hands behind his back. The coroner was crying aloud and asked us, “Why on earth would they bring a dead man in with handcuffs on ? ” Gatewood Gailbraith an attorney out of Lexington Kentucky thought that the Rainbow Farms murders were in fact, a Religious Sacrifice for the war in the middle east. Based his opinion due to the evidence about the testicles. Please remember Rainbow Farm on 4-20 as their executions are just as important as any execution, maybe even more because they were our people.., just peaceful protestors on the war on drugs.
Yes, they will be remembered, and thanks for sharing Brian.