The Two Step Plan to National Economic Reform and Recovery
1. Directs the Treasury Department to issue U.S. Notes (like Lincoln’s Greenbacks; can also be in electronic deposit format) to pay off the National debt.
2. Increases the reserve ratio private banks are required to maintain from 10% to 100%, thereby terminating their ability to create money, while simultaneously absorbing the funds created to retire the national debt. (this should probably happen over a long period of time)
These two relatively simple steps, which Congress has the power to enact, would extinguish the national debt, without inflation or deflation, and end the unjust practice of private banks creating money as loans (i.e., fractional reserve banking). Paying off the national debt would wipe out the $400+ billion annual interest payments and thereby balance the budget. This Act would stabilize the economy and end the boom-bust economic cycles caused by fractional reserve banking.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/
Thursday, January 19, 2012
1984 by George Orwell - A Description of the New World Order
1984 by George Orwell
1949
p123
from 1984
If leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.
p124
During the consolidation of power stage [of a state, non-state] sources of public information [are] suppressed, guaranteeing the future uniformity of public opinion on all matters of significance [to the new ruling elite].
p125
from 1984
A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.
p127
How does continuous war act to keep the Lows "stupefied by poverty" and thereby assure the maintenance of the social structure? The goal of the wars is to enable the economy to be kept going for the benefit of the High, its military, and its bureaucracy and control personnel (the Thought Police, etc.), but at the same time to assure that any excess production capacity is prevented from producing consumer goods for the lower classes. That excess capacity is instead directed to producing excess military goods which will ' ultimately rust away or be destroyed in warfare; that is, the excess capacity is deliberately wasted in order to turn it away from the production of goods which would result in added leisure or well-being for the lower classes. Those classes are instead continually forced into group activities expressing hatred toward the current enemy (any enemy) and dependency upon and love toward their benevolent rulers for protecting them from that enemy. They are thereby led to accept the consumer shortages, the poverty, and the other privations to which they are subjected. Their economic status is kept at the subsistence level, forcing their priorities to be focused on simply acquiring basic food, clothing, and shelter. They are thus denied either the time or the inclination to question the fairness or permanence of their societal condition, or to otherwise evolve into a threat to the established hierarchy.
p128
from 1984
What is our motive? Why should we want power? He then proceeds to answer is own question: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power .... Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship .... The object of power is power ....
p129
from 1984
The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men .... [And] how does one man assert his power over another?" He answers his own question: "By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy - everything.
1949
p123
from 1984
If leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.
p124
During the consolidation of power stage [of a state, non-state] sources of public information [are] suppressed, guaranteeing the future uniformity of public opinion on all matters of significance [to the new ruling elite].
p125
from 1984
A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.
p127
How does continuous war act to keep the Lows "stupefied by poverty" and thereby assure the maintenance of the social structure? The goal of the wars is to enable the economy to be kept going for the benefit of the High, its military, and its bureaucracy and control personnel (the Thought Police, etc.), but at the same time to assure that any excess production capacity is prevented from producing consumer goods for the lower classes. That excess capacity is instead directed to producing excess military goods which will ' ultimately rust away or be destroyed in warfare; that is, the excess capacity is deliberately wasted in order to turn it away from the production of goods which would result in added leisure or well-being for the lower classes. Those classes are instead continually forced into group activities expressing hatred toward the current enemy (any enemy) and dependency upon and love toward their benevolent rulers for protecting them from that enemy. They are thereby led to accept the consumer shortages, the poverty, and the other privations to which they are subjected. Their economic status is kept at the subsistence level, forcing their priorities to be focused on simply acquiring basic food, clothing, and shelter. They are thus denied either the time or the inclination to question the fairness or permanence of their societal condition, or to otherwise evolve into a threat to the established hierarchy.
p128
from 1984
What is our motive? Why should we want power? He then proceeds to answer is own question: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power .... Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship .... The object of power is power ....
p129
from 1984
The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men .... [And] how does one man assert his power over another?" He answers his own question: "By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy - everything.
The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin
The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin
1994
p87
Central banks have utilized and promoted wars for their own profit, starting with the Rothschild involvement with the Napoleonic wars, and continuing up to the present day.
p90
The Fed [Federal Reserve] is merely a cartel with a government facade.
p93
The Fed's [Federal Reserve] real objective [is] not to protect the public, but rather to sacrifice the public to the interests of the banking cartel.
p99
A purpose of the Bretton Woods system is to create a world government ruled by the banking elites, using the United Nations as the core of a political structure and the IMF as the world central bank, issuing and controlling the world's only important currency [the dollar].
p100
The [global banking] elites understand that they will never be able to consolidate and hold their power by means of a gradualist program unless and until they are able to make the IMF the sole issuer of the world's only important currency [the dollar].
p100
Harvard professor Richard Cooper, a CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] member and Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in the Carter administration writing in 1984 in the CFR's house organ Foreign Affairs, 1984
I suggest a radical alternative scheme for the next century: the creation of a common currency for all the industrial democracies, with a common monetary policy and a joint Bank of Issue to determine that monetary policy .... How can independent states accomplish that? They need to turn over the determination of monetary policy to a supranational body.
It is highly doubtful whether the American public, to take just one example, could ever accept that countries with oppressive autocratic regimes should vote on the monetary policy that would affect monetary conditions in the United States .... For such a bold step to work at all, it presupposes a certain convergence of political values.
p101
John Foster Dulles, 1939
Some dilution or leveling off of the sovereignty system as it prevails in the world today must take place to the immediate disadvantage of those nations which now possess the preponderance of power .... The establishment of a common money ... would deprive our government of exclusive control over a national money .... The United States must be prepared to make sacrifices afterward in setting up a world politico-economic order which would level off inequalities of economic opportunity with respect to nations.
p102
[President Jimmy] Carter advisor Richard Gardener, 1974
The house of world order will have to be built from the bottom up .... An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.
p102
Paul Volcker, in 1979
The standard of living of the average American has to decline .... I don't think you can escape that.
p102
The gist of the game of bailout is to simultaneously (1) deliver into the clutches of the New World Order (both) the Third World countries, whose leaders are to be the recipients of riches from the taxpayers of the developed countries, riches that they are expected to squander and never pay back, but thereby remain in thrall to the bankers forever, and (2) drag down the economies and comforts of the strong countries to the point, for example, of economic collapse and a breakdown in civil order, perhaps exacerbated by widespread "terrorist" bombings, following which, the countries' citizens will be grateful to yield their sovereignty and receive in return the support, acceptance, and protection of an economically and militarily strong central organization claiming to be ready and able to provide such support. Such a capitulation might be made easier to accept if it could be previously arranged for Russia to disappear as an external threat, and to appear to be in just as much economic and social difficulty as the United States.
p103
A description of the WTO in a full-page ad in the New York Times
The World Trade Organization - the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.
p103
Monetary Control Act of 1980 gives the Fed [Federal Reserve the power to] create new Federal Reserve Notes and give them away to foreign governments, or, to be formal, "loan" them, receiving as collateral debt instruments (bonds, etc.) held by those foreign governments. With the power to create dollars not only for the American governments, but now for any foreign government as well, the Fed has become very close to becoming a central bank for the entire world.
p104
Griffin makes a case for the view that e sudden demise of "Communism" is a ploy agreed upon between the banking elites and the Soviet leaders to enable bailout funds to flow to those states, further eroding the American economy, while terminating, at least for now, the militarily threatening posture of the USSR. The communist leaders would mostly remain in power, though renamed Social Democrats, or something similar. They and the elites would continue to work together for one socialist world.
p104
A cabal of English aristocrats and bankers [created] the Bank o England in 1694. King William, in need of money to fight a certain war, money which he couldn't raise by taxing or borrowing, granted a charter to a favored group of intriguers to form a bank which would be given a monopoly on issuing English bank notes, i.e., English paper money, which would be created out of nothing and credited to the government in return for a government IOU, the only "backing" that would be required. The government would pay interest on this "loan," making it look legitimate to the public, but the bank's even larger payback was that it was empowered to make additional commercial loans, at interest, using the same government IOU's as "backing," just as though the IOU's were hard, metallic gold. The banks, by receiving interest on money they could create and lend out at will, were thereby going to get rich, the king was going to be able to raise any amount of "money" he wanted, and the public, remaining ignorant of what was going on, was going to pay for it all by having their savings devalued by the expansion of the currency. (Our Federal Reserve does essentially the same thing, with added refinements which greatly increase its leverage over commercial credit.)
p106
The world outlook of the international financiers...Their success depends upon a pattern of character traits including cold objectivity, immunity to patriotism, and indifference to the human condition.
p107
The Rothschild Formula
Propel governments into war for the profits they yield.
p107
[International] bankers arranged the Bolshevik coup in Russia in 1917, and then supported the regime thereafter, both for the profit involved and, presumably, to build up a "credible enemy."
p117
The Wall Street biggies came through [the Depression] very well indeed, including John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Joseph P. Kennedy, Bernard Baruch, Henry Morgenthau, Douglas Dillon, etc.
p117
G. Edward Griffin
Virtually all of the inner club was rescued [from The Depression]. There is no record of any member of the interlocking directorate between the Federal Reserve, ' the major New York banks, and their prime customers having been caught by surprise.
p117
On August 9, 1929 the pin was inserted into the bubble. On that date, the Federal Reserve raised its discount rate to six percent and simultaneously began to sell securities on the open market. Both actions acted to shrink bank reserves and therefore the money supply... The market reached its peak on September 19, then started its slide downward. On October 24 the slide became a torrent, and on October 29, the market collapsed.
While the uninformed were in the process of loosing their shirts, the insiders who had sold out before the crash were now to be found, with cash at the ready, on the buying side. Companies whose stock had dropped to a fraction of their value were still basically viable, but their ownership, in large measure, had been shifted from, to use Andrew Mellon's phrase, the "less competent people," who had been sucked into the speculative maelstrom created by the Fed's easy credit, to the financial elites, who had been made privy to the crash that was around the corner. Great fortunes were made or added to by the latter.
1994
p87
Central banks have utilized and promoted wars for their own profit, starting with the Rothschild involvement with the Napoleonic wars, and continuing up to the present day.
p90
The Fed [Federal Reserve] is merely a cartel with a government facade.
p93
The Fed's [Federal Reserve] real objective [is] not to protect the public, but rather to sacrifice the public to the interests of the banking cartel.
p99
A purpose of the Bretton Woods system is to create a world government ruled by the banking elites, using the United Nations as the core of a political structure and the IMF as the world central bank, issuing and controlling the world's only important currency [the dollar].
p100
The [global banking] elites understand that they will never be able to consolidate and hold their power by means of a gradualist program unless and until they are able to make the IMF the sole issuer of the world's only important currency [the dollar].
p100
Harvard professor Richard Cooper, a CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] member and Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in the Carter administration writing in 1984 in the CFR's house organ Foreign Affairs, 1984
I suggest a radical alternative scheme for the next century: the creation of a common currency for all the industrial democracies, with a common monetary policy and a joint Bank of Issue to determine that monetary policy .... How can independent states accomplish that? They need to turn over the determination of monetary policy to a supranational body.
It is highly doubtful whether the American public, to take just one example, could ever accept that countries with oppressive autocratic regimes should vote on the monetary policy that would affect monetary conditions in the United States .... For such a bold step to work at all, it presupposes a certain convergence of political values.
p101
John Foster Dulles, 1939
Some dilution or leveling off of the sovereignty system as it prevails in the world today must take place to the immediate disadvantage of those nations which now possess the preponderance of power .... The establishment of a common money ... would deprive our government of exclusive control over a national money .... The United States must be prepared to make sacrifices afterward in setting up a world politico-economic order which would level off inequalities of economic opportunity with respect to nations.
p102
[President Jimmy] Carter advisor Richard Gardener, 1974
The house of world order will have to be built from the bottom up .... An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.
p102
Paul Volcker, in 1979
The standard of living of the average American has to decline .... I don't think you can escape that.
p102
The gist of the game of bailout is to simultaneously (1) deliver into the clutches of the New World Order (both) the Third World countries, whose leaders are to be the recipients of riches from the taxpayers of the developed countries, riches that they are expected to squander and never pay back, but thereby remain in thrall to the bankers forever, and (2) drag down the economies and comforts of the strong countries to the point, for example, of economic collapse and a breakdown in civil order, perhaps exacerbated by widespread "terrorist" bombings, following which, the countries' citizens will be grateful to yield their sovereignty and receive in return the support, acceptance, and protection of an economically and militarily strong central organization claiming to be ready and able to provide such support. Such a capitulation might be made easier to accept if it could be previously arranged for Russia to disappear as an external threat, and to appear to be in just as much economic and social difficulty as the United States.
p103
A description of the WTO in a full-page ad in the New York Times
The World Trade Organization - the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.
p103
Monetary Control Act of 1980 gives the Fed [Federal Reserve the power to] create new Federal Reserve Notes and give them away to foreign governments, or, to be formal, "loan" them, receiving as collateral debt instruments (bonds, etc.) held by those foreign governments. With the power to create dollars not only for the American governments, but now for any foreign government as well, the Fed has become very close to becoming a central bank for the entire world.
p104
Griffin makes a case for the view that e sudden demise of "Communism" is a ploy agreed upon between the banking elites and the Soviet leaders to enable bailout funds to flow to those states, further eroding the American economy, while terminating, at least for now, the militarily threatening posture of the USSR. The communist leaders would mostly remain in power, though renamed Social Democrats, or something similar. They and the elites would continue to work together for one socialist world.
p104
A cabal of English aristocrats and bankers [created] the Bank o England in 1694. King William, in need of money to fight a certain war, money which he couldn't raise by taxing or borrowing, granted a charter to a favored group of intriguers to form a bank which would be given a monopoly on issuing English bank notes, i.e., English paper money, which would be created out of nothing and credited to the government in return for a government IOU, the only "backing" that would be required. The government would pay interest on this "loan," making it look legitimate to the public, but the bank's even larger payback was that it was empowered to make additional commercial loans, at interest, using the same government IOU's as "backing," just as though the IOU's were hard, metallic gold. The banks, by receiving interest on money they could create and lend out at will, were thereby going to get rich, the king was going to be able to raise any amount of "money" he wanted, and the public, remaining ignorant of what was going on, was going to pay for it all by having their savings devalued by the expansion of the currency. (Our Federal Reserve does essentially the same thing, with added refinements which greatly increase its leverage over commercial credit.)
p106
The world outlook of the international financiers...Their success depends upon a pattern of character traits including cold objectivity, immunity to patriotism, and indifference to the human condition.
p107
The Rothschild Formula
Propel governments into war for the profits they yield.
p107
[International] bankers arranged the Bolshevik coup in Russia in 1917, and then supported the regime thereafter, both for the profit involved and, presumably, to build up a "credible enemy."
p117
The Wall Street biggies came through [the Depression] very well indeed, including John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Joseph P. Kennedy, Bernard Baruch, Henry Morgenthau, Douglas Dillon, etc.
p117
G. Edward Griffin
Virtually all of the inner club was rescued [from The Depression]. There is no record of any member of the interlocking directorate between the Federal Reserve, ' the major New York banks, and their prime customers having been caught by surprise.
p117
On August 9, 1929 the pin was inserted into the bubble. On that date, the Federal Reserve raised its discount rate to six percent and simultaneously began to sell securities on the open market. Both actions acted to shrink bank reserves and therefore the money supply... The market reached its peak on September 19, then started its slide downward. On October 24 the slide became a torrent, and on October 29, the market collapsed.
While the uninformed were in the process of loosing their shirts, the insiders who had sold out before the crash were now to be found, with cash at the ready, on the buying side. Companies whose stock had dropped to a fraction of their value were still basically viable, but their ownership, in large measure, had been shifted from, to use Andrew Mellon's phrase, the "less competent people," who had been sucked into the speculative maelstrom created by the Fed's easy credit, to the financial elites, who had been made privy to the crash that was around the corner. Great fortunes were made or added to by the latter.
The Naked Capitalist
The Naked Capitalist
by W. Cleon Skousen
1970
p49
Cleon Skousen
There is a growing volume of evidence that the highest centers of political and economic power have been forcing the entire human race toward a global, socialist, dictatorial-oriented society.
And what has been most baffling about it has been the fact that this drift toward dictatorship with its inevitable obliteration of a thousand years of struggle toward human freedom, is being plotted, promoted, and implemented by the leaders of free nations and the super-rich of those nations whose positions of affluence would seem to make them the foremost beneficiaries of the free enterprise, property-oriented, open society in which so much progress has been made.
p49
Cleon Skousen
The world hierarchy of the dynastic superrich is out to take over the entire planet, doing it with Socialistic legislation where possible, but having no reluctance to use Communist revolution where necessary.
p51
Cleon Skousen
Power from any source tends to create an appetite for additional power. Power coming from wealth tends to create an appetite for political power, and vice versa. It was almost inevitable that the superrich would one day aspire to control not only their own wealth, but the wealth of the whole world. To achieve this, they were perfectly willing to feed the ambitions of the power-hungry political conspirators who were committed to the overthrow of all existing governments, and the establishment of a central world-wide dictatorship along socialist lines.
This, of course, was a risky business for the Anglo-American secret society. The super-rich were gambling on the expectation that when the violence and reconstruction had been completed by the political conspirators, the super-rich would then take over ... to guide mankind hopefully and compulsively into a whole new era of universal peace and universal prosperity.
To take such a risk, the cadre of the super-rich had to ignore the most elementary aspects of the ferocity of the left-wing conspiratorial mentality. Mao Tse-tung has articulated the basic Communist conviction that political power comes from the barrel of a gun, and once they seize control it is their expressed intention to use the gun to prevent the super-rich or anyone else from taking that control away from them. [Similarly, Hitler repeatedly told Britain that he intended to realize his goals by going to war, not by diplomatic negotiation.
by W. Cleon Skousen
1970
p49
Cleon Skousen
There is a growing volume of evidence that the highest centers of political and economic power have been forcing the entire human race toward a global, socialist, dictatorial-oriented society.
And what has been most baffling about it has been the fact that this drift toward dictatorship with its inevitable obliteration of a thousand years of struggle toward human freedom, is being plotted, promoted, and implemented by the leaders of free nations and the super-rich of those nations whose positions of affluence would seem to make them the foremost beneficiaries of the free enterprise, property-oriented, open society in which so much progress has been made.
p49
Cleon Skousen
The world hierarchy of the dynastic superrich is out to take over the entire planet, doing it with Socialistic legislation where possible, but having no reluctance to use Communist revolution where necessary.
p51
Cleon Skousen
Power from any source tends to create an appetite for additional power. Power coming from wealth tends to create an appetite for political power, and vice versa. It was almost inevitable that the superrich would one day aspire to control not only their own wealth, but the wealth of the whole world. To achieve this, they were perfectly willing to feed the ambitions of the power-hungry political conspirators who were committed to the overthrow of all existing governments, and the establishment of a central world-wide dictatorship along socialist lines.
This, of course, was a risky business for the Anglo-American secret society. The super-rich were gambling on the expectation that when the violence and reconstruction had been completed by the political conspirators, the super-rich would then take over ... to guide mankind hopefully and compulsively into a whole new era of universal peace and universal prosperity.
To take such a risk, the cadre of the super-rich had to ignore the most elementary aspects of the ferocity of the left-wing conspiratorial mentality. Mao Tse-tung has articulated the basic Communist conviction that political power comes from the barrel of a gun, and once they seize control it is their expressed intention to use the gun to prevent the super-rich or anyone else from taking that control away from them. [Similarly, Hitler repeatedly told Britain that he intended to realize his goals by going to war, not by diplomatic negotiation.
Como La Marihuana y Canamo Industrial Fue Prohibido en Mexico
En México la historia de la marihuana inicia desde la llegada de los españoles a México con miras a conquistar el territorio, ellos transportaron la planta con fines de producción de cáñamo en busca de nuevas tierras de cultivo y lugares donde procesar y fabricar textiles. Nuestros antepasados Mexicanos hallaron el uso medicinal de esta nueva planta, pero fue hasta entrado el siglo XVII cuando el consumo por placer o recreativo empezó incluso en la Revolución Mexicana los batallones preparados a la batalla siempre tenían un pequeño cargamento para el uso de sus soldados ya que les infundía valor, hasta la famosa canción mexicana La Cucaracha menciona a la marihuana en sus coplas.
La Cucaracha La cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque le falta porque le falta
Marihuana que fumar
Ya pisando los años de la década de 1920 cuando toma el poder el nuevo gobierno revolucionario. Prohíbe el comercio y producción de la marihuana en México, Dando inicio al enorme negocio del narcotráfico, quien no recuerda aquellas declaraciones de uno de los capos más fuerte en su tiempo Rafael Caro Quintero que citaba que si lo dejaban trabajar en paz y sin que lo persiguieran el mismo podía pagar la Deuda externa de México en un solo día.
--------------------
¿Por qué se prohíbe el cultivo de esta planta si esta comprobado que puede aportar múltiples beneficios desde un plano medicinal, hasta la manufactura de productos imprescindibles como el papel, la ropa, o incluso proveer de elementos necesarios para la construcción y la gastronomía?
A continuación repasemos algunos datos históricos que ponen en evidencia el valor que otorgaban las sociedades a esta planta previo a su prohibición. La mayoría de estos datos, que corresponden a Estados Unidos ya que este país fue el principal promotor de su prohibición a nivel mundial, pueden verificarse a través de fuentes de conocimiento tradicionalmente legitimadas como la Enciclopedia Británica, la cual por cierto durante 150 años fue impresa en papel de cáñamo: 
A continuación repasemos algunos datos históricos que ponen en evidencia el valor que otorgaban las sociedades a esta planta previo a su prohibición. La mayoría de estos datos, que corresponden a Estados Unidos ya que este país fue el principal promotor de su prohibición a nivel mundial, pueden verificarse a través de fuentes de conocimiento tradicionalmente legitimadas como la Enciclopedia Británica, la cual por cierto durante 150 años fue impresa en papel de cáñamo:
La criminalización de la marihuana en Estados Unidos tuvo sus primeros antecedentes en 1906, en el Distrito de Columbia, con la primer regulación en torno al cultivo de esta planta. Posteriormente siguieron Massachusetts (1911), Nueva York (1914) y Maine (1914). Mientras que en 1913 California pasó la primera ley de prohibición de marihuana y Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), y Nebraska (1927) le siguieron. Ya en 1932 se creó el Uniform State Narcotic Act para invitar a los gobiernos estatales a que se unieran, sin excepción, a esta campaña nacional por criminalizar o al menos regular el uso de marihuana.
Cuatro años después, en 1936, durante la Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs llevada a cabo en Ginebra, Estados Unidos promovió ante el resto del mundo, a través de su Federal Bureau of Narcotics, un tratado de criminalización de cualquier actividad relacionada a la marihuana, la coca, y el opio (incluidas su cultivo, producción, manufacturación, y distribución) con excepción de contextos médicos y científicos. El Artículo 2 de esta convención invitaba a todos los firmantes a castigar severamente, en particular con penas que implicaran la privación de la libertad, a toda aquella persona que se involucrara con estas actividades neo ilícitas. Sin embargo, muchos países presentes se negaron a suscribir ciertos apartados del tratado y estados Unidos, principal promotor de la convención, se negó a firmar alegando la flaqueza del resto de las naciones sobretodo en asuntos relacionados a la extradición y la confiscación de bienes ligados al tráfico de drogas.
Al analizar la historia se puede percibir como un gesto bastante raro, incluso esquizofrénico, la transformación de posición estadounidense frente a la marihuana. Súbitamente Estados Unidos pasó de vivir un romance idílico con la cannabis, a promover enérgicamente su prohibición, castigo, y cuasi satanización. Sin duda existe un eslabón perdido que no aparece en la historia oficial y que tiene que ver con la presión de las corporaciones (esas abstractas y todopoderosas entidades que hoy controlan buena parte del planeta y que ya a principios del siglo XX comenzaban a consolidarse como una fuerza aún más influyente que el propio gobierno).
Corporaciones VS Cannabis
Como podemos ver la cannabis es una planta flexible, multifacética, y con diversas cualidades. A partir de ella se pueden generar desde combustibles y aceites comestibles, hasta ropa y todo tipo de telas, pasando por cuerdas y, por supuesto, papel. Sin embargo, precisamente estas bondades de la planta eran las que más incomodaban a las corporaciones que estaban monetizando frenéticamente mercados como el del abastecimiento de papel industrial, el algodón, y los hidrocarburos. Al parecer, en un principio fueron principalmente dos corporaciones las que se volcaron por completo para promover la prohibición de esta planta: DuPont y la Hearst Company (propiedad de William Randolph Hearst en quien se inspiró el film de Citizen Kane).
El banquero Andrew Mellon, quien se convirtió en el tesorero del gobierno del presidente Hoover, era uno de los principales inversionistas de DuPont, actualmente una de las mayores corporaciones del mundo y que en la época de 1920 a 1940 estaba consolidándose en el negocio de los petroquímicos y de los polímeros. Para ambas ramas de mercado el cannabis resultaba una seria amenaza pues de esta planta podían derivarse tanto fibras naturales que redujeran el consumo de nylon, uno de los productos clave de DuPont en esos años, como de combustible vegetal que amenazaba su apuesta por los hidrocarburos. En este sentido DuPont tenía claro que una de las premisas de su estrategia de mercado tenía que anular la presencia del cáñamo. Siendo Secretario del Tesoro Mellon influyó para que su sobrino Harry J. Anslinger fuese nombrado en 1930 como el primer comisionado Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Y a pesar de que el cabildeo en contra de la cannabis ya llevaba poco más de dos décadas lo cierto es que no fue hasta que Anslinger llegó al FBN cuando la verdadera guerra comenzó.
Por otro lado, la otra industria que se sentía gravemente amenazada por la presencia del cáñamo era la papelera. La Hearst Company controlaba buena parte de la producción de papel e incluso era el principal proveedor del área de productos de papel de la hoy multinacional Kimberly Clark. Hearst, un despiadado hombre de negocios no tardó en darse cuenta, al igual que DuPont, de la necesidad de eliminar al cáñamo del mercado y junto con otros empresarios presionaron al gobierno, a través del FBN para que se criminalizara por completo el cultivo de esta planta. Incluso Hearst, el legendario magnate de los medios impresos, puso a disposición su ejército de diarios para promover una campaña cultural en contra de la cannabis y como parte de esta iniciativa se adoptó por primera vez el nombre de marihuana, una palabra con fonética recordable, breve, y precisa para designar a esta ahora diabólica planta (por cierto un término que hasta entonces era solamente utilizado en el argot popular de México).
Otro actor que desempeñó un papel fundamental en este proceso fue la ya entonces consolidada industria del tabaco. En esa época la cultura americana ya había adoptado integralmente el consumo cotidiano de cigarrillos. Sin embargo, las grandes tabacaleras habían comprobado que el consumo de tabaco entre la población que fumaba cannabis era menor que en aquellos que solo consumían su producto. Por otro lado los fumadores de esta planta jamás de someterían a un mercado industrial ya que era relativamente fácil cultivarla caseramente y autoabastecer su consumo personal sin recurrir a una marca industrial. Por el contrario, la siembra de tacabo era mucho más compleja y requería de una extensión de tierra suficiente para cultivarse y no solo de un par de macetas. Tomando en cuenta esto, y ante el poco futuro comercial que se percibía en el rubro del cannabis, las grandes tabacaleras no dudaron en apoyar la cruzada en contra de la marihuana.
Finalmente no podemos dejar de mencionar a la siempre oscura industria farmacéutica, conocida como el Big Pharma, y que consciente de las propiedades medicinales que la marihuana ofrecía a la población también la percibió como una amenaza contra sus intereses comerciales. Se tienen confirmados múltiples beneficios médicos que contiene la cannabis, entre ellos el combate al glaucoma, el ayudar a la prevención de Alzheimer, y reducir el dolor del síndrome pre menstrual entre las mujeres, por mencionar solo algunos. Contra todos estos males el Big Pharma ha desarrollado medicamentos sintéticos que en muchos casos han probado ser menos efectivos, o al menos mucho más costosos que tratarlos con marihuana. De hecho esta misma postura de las farmacéuticas alude a un fenómeno actual con la campaña que busca volver ilegal el uso de plantas medicinales en Europa como sustituto de medicamentos.
Aunque no ha sido comprobado, se dice que Anslinger se reunión con algunos de los más poderosos empresarios del momento, entre ellos obviamente representantes de las tabacaleras, DuPont y el propio W.R. Hearst, para pactar una guerra frontal contra la marihuana y diseñar una campaña mediática que imprimiera el imaginario colectivo con una nueva idea: la marihuana es una planta nociva para la salud y para la sociedad, y su consumo, cultivo y distribución debe ser tenazmente descalificado, denunciado, y perseguido.
A continuación se instauró una de las mayores cruzadas de manipulación mediática en la historia. Decenas de diarios se empeñaron en desatacar los “horrores” de la marihuana y la población aprendió que esta planta era responsable directo de todo tipo de sucesos negativos, desde asesinatos y accidentes Automovilísticos, hasta la pérdida de moral. El cine mainstream también se unió a la campaña con Films como ‘Reefer Madness’ (1936), ‘Marihuana: Assassin of Youth’ (1935) and ‘Marihuana: The Devil’s Weed’ (1936), todas ellas promoviendo la satanización de la marihuana y, aunque lo hacían de una manera que hoy nos parece cómica o altamente caricaturesca, lo cierto es que fue una movida bastante eficiente para generar una percepción profundamente negativa entre la población. Básicamente el discurso giraba en torno a conceptos bastante rudimentarios pero que para la sociedad de ese momento fueron más que suficientes: “un narcótico violento”, “efectos multi-destructivos”, “un enemigo público”, etc…
Nuestros días
Poco tiempo tomó que la movilización mediática en Estados Unidos en contra de la cannabis comenzara a impactar a la población de otros países. Y esto, sumado a la dominante influencia política de EUA en el escenario internacional, derivó en que eventualmente la gran mayoría de los países fueron adoptando medidas y discursos similares. Con el tiempo la legislación anti-marihuana fue sofisticándose y endureciéndose, hasta nuestros días. Actualmente, si bien es ya prácticamente imposible convencer a una persona con los primitivos argumentos sobre los que originalmente se fundó la campaña de desprestigio contra la ganja, lo cierto es que el marco legal ha sido afinado para obstaculizar la posibilidad de legalizarla y también la propaganda ha sido “refinada” pero en ningún momento ha cesado (basta recordar las pasadas votaciones en California donde incluso en contra de todos los pronósticos no se logró legalizar).
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