PART 16:BEAUTIFUL DELUSIONS [MCKIBBEN’S DIVESTMENT TOUR – BROUGHT TO YOU BY WALL STREET

There will be a link at the bottom where parts 1-15 can be read....

By Cory Morningstar with Forrest Palmer

Part sixteen of an investigative series

BREAKTHROUGH CAPITALISM AND VOLANS

Breakthrough Capitalism – where business is referred to as an ecosystem:

“The first thing to say is that this website is one of several that are part of our close business ecosystem. These include: Volans, Breakthrough Capitalism, The Zeronauts, SustainAbility” — John Elkington Website

“A revolution of capitalism”:

“We need a revolution of capitalism,” said Peter Bakker, former CFOI and CEO at TNT and now President Of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.” – Volans Press Release, Breakthrough: How Business Leaders Can Create Market Revolutions, March 7, 2013

In the 2012 David Blood lecture (video),”Breakthrough Capitalism Forum – David Blood”, one notices the sponsorship in the background. At the top of the screen we can identify speakers/sponsors Jeremy Leggitt of Solar Century & Carbon Tracker, and Jennifer Morgan of WWF, to name two. [See full list of partners.]

Breakthrough Capitalism  is a key project of Volans, a driver of market-based solutions. On the growing list of Volans partnerships, one finds Shell Foundation, Dow, Generation, GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) (Ceres, UN), Tellus Mater, The B Team (A Richard Branson NGO now being operated/managed by public relations firm Purpose, sister org. of Avaaz) and many others. On the Volans Board of advisors we find none other than Robert Massie, former President and CEO of New Economics Institute. [“Our early relationships with partners and clients have critically informed our evolution; the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Allianz and HP, Atkins, Bayer, F&C, Nestlé, PPR and Recyclebank.”] [Source] [Note: Jeff Skoll co-founded EBay with Pierre Omidyar.]

“As public money gets pulled out of health care and education and all of this, NGOs funded by these major financial corporations and other kinds of financial instruments move in, doing the work that missionaries used to do during colonialism—giving the impression of being charitable organizations, but actually preparing the world for the free markets of corporate capital.” — Arundhati Roy, REVEALED: The head of Omidyar Network in India had a secret second job… Helping elect Narendra Modi, May 26, 2014

SHOWMANSHIP OVER SCIENCE AND FACTS

Of interest regarding the influence these men have on the environmental movement is that both Skoll (Participant Media) and his EBay co-founder/partner, Omidyar financed the film, “Merchants of Doubt” (acquired by Sony Pictures) ^[2]

To illustrate how these institutional relationships develop and explain the mainstream media representations we need to look no further than Omidyar. Omidyar’s ties to the previous Obama administration run deep ^[Source] as does his vast network within the humanitarian industry complex. Humanity United is one such example. Consider that the Omidyar Network has made more investments in India than in any other country since 2009, according to its portfolio. ^[Source] More recently, Omidyar was a key player in the 2014 coup d’état carried out against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych having co-funded Ukraine “revolution” groups with USAID and National Endowment for Democracy. ^{[Source] [Source]}

The Skoll-Omdiyar film, Merchants of Doubt, which is a condensed cinematic representation of the book it is based upon (published in 2010), focuses on the web of highly financed climate change deniers. The press release states: “Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the curtain on a secretive group of highly charismatic, silver-tongued pundits-for-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities – yet have the contrary aim of spreading maximum confusion about well-studied public threats ranging from toxic chemicals to pharmaceuticals to climate change.” Note that this same description also aptly describes those at the helm of the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC). It is of interest that at this late juncture in anthropogenic climate disruption, billionaire “philanthropists” decided to highlight the players who reap the profits by burning carbon, rather than the players who stand to make trillions under the guise of an illusory “new economy.” The same new economy both Skoll and Omdiyar stand to reap further profits and market share from. A main prerequisite of the liberal left is that an “other” must always exist. For the divestment campaign the “other” is the fossil fuel industry – the said enemy. For Western imperial states, the “other” is the “terrorist”. For this particular film, the “others” (plural) are the deniers who can shoulder all the blame. For the NPIC as a whole, it matters little, who the “other” at this moment may be, just as long as it means not looking at our own reflections in the mirror.

“Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives.”– Omidyar Network, “A World of Positive Returns”, website

In the Variety September 4, 2014 film review, the author observes that “Kenner is particularly fascinated by the phenomenon of self-described “grassroots” organizations that are actually shilling for specific corporate and political interests (the Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity, the Exxon Mobile-financed Heartland Institute, etc.).” This blatantly obvious (and accurate) observation, “the phenomenon of self-described ‘grassroots’ organizations that are actually shilling for specific corporate and political interests…” is one that could easily apply to the movements manufactured by and belonging to the NPIC. The shilling in this instance for The Rockefeller Foundation, The Clinton Global Initiative, etc. In the same review, the author writes that by “[P]roviding an accessible, somewhat facile framing device, professional magician Jamy Ian Swiss describes how all sleight-of-hand (including the card trick he performs and demystifies onscreen) is predicated on the audience’s willingness to be deceived.” This same predication fits America’s self-described environmental activists like a velvet glove.

The authors of Merchants of Doubt  found that “one way to effectively remove public fear around a particular issue is to create fear elsewhere — something the tobacco industry managed by aligning itself with the flame-retardant industry, as if unprotected furniture, not cigarettes, were to blame for house fires.” This same tactic is utilized in the building of acquiescence for the “new economy”. It is not the industrialized capitalist economic system causing our environmental crisis, ecological collapse and the Sixth Great Extinction. Rather, it is the lack of technology via “clean energy” infrastructures global in scope (which in reality would/will only further industrialization, thus accelerating both greenhouse gas emissions and planetary environmental degradation).

In a final observation, the reviewer concludes that “There’s perhaps a necessary element of hypocrisy in this approach, given the film’s point that too many Americans, by and large, prefer showmanship over science.”

Above: “Showmanship over science.”

Today’s ever-devolving Western society continues to demonstrate its preference for showmanship over science, celebrity over substance, technology over nature, liberal ideology over radical ideology, human life over all other life, white skin over non-white.

VOLANS

“It’s all very well for me to say the future is environmental excellence, green consumerism, the triple bottom line or breakthrough capitalism, but the many movements and communities of which we are part deserve a deeper explanation of the thinking and experiences that brought us to these conclusions.” — John Elkington, Co-Founder of Environmental Data Services, SustainAbility and Volans

“We see signs of breakthrough in … Generation Investment Management CEO David Blood’s spotlighting a five key steps to sustainable capitalism, and in the alliance between Richard Branson of Virgin and former PUMA CEO Jochen Zeitz—who are building The BTeam.” — Volans Press Release, Breakthrough: How Business Leaders Can Create Market Revolutions, March 7, 2013

Partners publicly disclosed upon announcement of “The Breakthrough Capitalism” Program are listed as follows: Generation, Tellus Mater Foundation, Autodesk, HewlettPackard, The Value Web and Innovationarts.

The first “follows” chosen upon the set-up of twitter accounts are always revealing and Breakthrough’s twitter account is no exception. The first four follows are founders, co-founders, directors and the social media outreach of Volans. The fifth person chosen to follow is a partner at Generation Investment. Number six is John B Elkington? (founder and Executive Chairman of Volans and author/creator of zeronauts; a project of Volans). Seventh is Jeroen van Lawick, international consultancy for “transformative CSR” (“corporate social responsibility”) and organization development, as well as founder of Zijn Werkt!. Eighth is David Willans, marketing director at Futerra. Number nine is none other than 350.org’s Naomi Klein who was chosen ahead of number ten: Jeremy Leggett (Solarcentury, SolarAid, and Carbon tracker).

“Breakthrough Capitalism” asks the question as to how to engage the “1,100 or so companies that now control half of the world’s market capitalization.”

Whereas Volans and Generation would have us believe we should give these corporations even more power, the truth is that these very 1,100 corporations more than likely represent the first ones that should be targeted for dismantlement.

“Volans is part think-tank, part consultancy, part broker and part incubator. Based in London and Singapore, Volans works globally with entrepreneurs, businesses, investors and governments to develop and scale innovative solutions to financial, social and environmental challenges. Our Pathways to Scale program aims to identify, map and remove barriers that slow the scaling of innovative solutions to governance, economic, social and environmental challenges.” [Source]

John Elkington is the founding partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, as well as the co-founder of SustainAbility (1987) and Environmental Data Services (ENDS, 1978). He is recognized as a world authority on “corporate responsibility” and “sustainable development.” In 2004, Businessweek described him as “a dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades.” In 2008, The Evening Standard named Elkington “a true green business guru,” and “an evangelist for corporate social and environmental responsibility long before it was fashionable.” Of course, only those who serve to benefit from such false narratives bestow these titles and accreditation's. For example, “corporate responsibility” is the strategic means to increase corporate domination via marketing.

In addition to the aforementioned credentials, Elkington is identified as a B Team “expert” on The B Team website. ^{[Full bio.]}

Elkington’s latest book utilizes/promotes Branson’s The B Team organization. The book titled Tomorrow’s Bottom Line: The B Team Playbook for Market Gamechangers, co-authored with B Team co-founder and former PUMA CEO Jochen Zeitz, was released in 2014.

Elkington has served as a juror for the first Gigaton Awards, developed by Richard Branson’s non-profit Carbon War Room – dubbed the ‘Oscars of sustainability.’ As well, he has completed a Fellowship at the Bellagio Centre awarded to him by The Rockefeller Foundation.

Elkington serves/has served on 70 boards and advisory boards. He co-chairs the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Breakthrough Innovation Advisory Council, chairs the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Technology Consortium, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Commission on Business & Sustainable Development (GCBSD). He is a member of the Board of the Social Stock Exchange (SSX), and chairs its Admissions Panel. He is also a member of the Boards of organizations such as the Biomimicry Institute and The Ecological Sequestration Trust (TEST), and a member of Advisory Boards for organizations such as 2degrees Network, Aviva, The B Team, Nestlé, Tesco, Guardian Sustainable Business, and Zouk Capital (cleantech fund). ^[Source]  Elkington has also served as strategic advisor to Bayer Material Science, Gaia Energy, Instituto Ethos, One Earth Innovation, Polecat UK; senior Advisor to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre; board member of EcoVadis, Recyclebank Sustainability Advisory Council; the Evian Group Brain Trust and the Newsweek Green Rankings Advisory Board.

Elkington’s first involvement in the corporate environmental sector was raising funds at the age of 11 for the newly formed World Wildlife Fund (WWF), where he has for many years served on the Council of Ambassadors. He has written or co-authored 17 books, including The Gene Factory: Inside the Genetic and Biotechnology Business Revolution (1985), Double Dividends? US Biotechnology and Third World Development (1986), The Green Capitalists: Industry’s Search for Environmental Excellence (with Tom Burke , 1987), and The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, co-authored with Volans co-founder Pamela Hartigan (2008).

In 2005 Elkington received the “Social Capitalist of the Year” award from Fast Company, later to be awarded a 3-year, $1 million field-building grant from the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, at SustainAbility and Volans.

In September of 2016 Elkington launched “The Breakthrough Innovation Platform” to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in partnership with UN Global Compact. “The ultimate target of the SDGs is the privatization of Indigenous and public resources worldwide.” [Source]

“Aligned with the UN Global Compact’s priority of translating the new SDGs into business action, the aim of the Breakthrough Innovation Platform is to challenge and stretch prevailing business mindsets into the opportunity spaces offered by the SDGs.” — UN Global Compact and Volans Announce Strategic Partnership on Breakthrough Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals, May 31, 2016

BEAUTIFUL DELUSIONS | ZERONAUT

Illustration by Stephanie McMillan for Wrong Kind of Green

“Zero offers a powerful key to unlocking tomorrow’s growth markets.” – Zeronaut

Zeronaut was launched in April, 2008. It was founded by John Elkington.

Sophisticated and seductive marketing which appeals to an audience comprised of privilege is of critical importance. The marketing strategist executive, set with the task of selling an illusory “new economy”, employs both market-centric and human-centric terminology, which is alluring when paired with an underlying white saviour pretext – a prerequisite to successfully gloss over and elude the true extent of capitalism’s inherent violence and destructiveness. Market-centric language is strategically enticing as it invokes a “new’ economy” avec with new profit centres, inclusive of carbon emissions credits,  carbon capture storage, and most critically, today, the financialization of nature.

It is important to note that the Zeronaut mission/philosophy/marketing scheme is beguiling: “a new breed of innovator, determined to drive problems such as carbon, waste, toxics, and poverty to zero.” Yet, such beautiful delusions can only be afforded by the privileged. Not those who are oppressed under the capitalist economic system. Not the earth herself whose natural resources are destroyed in the creation of commodities for capital. Not for those now referred to as “human capital”. Not for those murdered by empire in the race for what’s left of our planet’s rapidly declining rare Earth minerals and resources.

Those praising the Zeronaut book include (in the order that they appear) Paul Hawken, David Blood (Goldman Sachs, Generation Investment), Jochen Zeit ( The B Team co-founder/Chairman of PUMA), David Grayson, Chair and Director of the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility and Peter Bakker, the President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

The Zeronaut 2012 Roll of Honor list includes Bill and Melinda Gates (GMO seeds), Al Gore and David Blood (Generation Investment, environmental markets), Ban-Ki Moon (environmental markets, carbon markets, methane extraction, REDD+), James Hansen (nuclear), Paul Hawken (“natural” capitalism), Pavan Sukhdev of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – commodification of the commons) and many more of those in elite positions of power and influence. ^{[Full list.]}

An example of the ideology espoused by Zeronaut, is highlighted in the sample chapter formerly found on its website. The author tells the reader that the Kraft Corporation has achieved “zero waste” at 36 food plants, thus “it’s happening.”

In the Kraft Beaver Dam plant in Wisconsin (that manufactures Philadelphia Cream Cheese) Kraft built an anaerobic digester – the digester processed waste into energy that was fed into the local grid. Yet, this is hardly a solution for Kraft’s toxic waste. Rather, it is a mechanism that serves to perpetuate the production of excess waste, because the excess waste has become profitable.

Kraft plants in Cikarang and Karawang, Indonesia, where plastic packaging film creates most of the waste, found a recycler that turns the material into bags and buckets. Yet another market was found. Yet, what about the oil required to produce the film in the first place? The planet continues to be drilled and decimated. The bags and buckets which need infinite growth, to consume the infinite waste, also require infinite consumptive patterns.

Kraft plants in Fresno and San Leandro, California that make a variety of Kraft products including Cornnuts, Capri Sun and Kool-Aid (toxins in, toxins out), have collected more than 100 tons of food waste like corn skins to be used as animal feed since 2009. Yet this food, not fit for human consumption, is therefore certainly not fit for animal consumption either. Further, one can be almost certain that these corn skins are derived from genetically engineered corn, as will be the soy, sugar beet and canola. In addition, we must take into account other hazardous, chemical intensive, biodiversity destroying industrialized crops.

The deluge of half truths and misinformation propagated by the N.P.I.C is the reason why it is necessary to analyse and define what the term “zero waste” truly means. In that regard, what is not mentioned is the mandatory mass-consumption of the product leaving the manufacturing plants and warehouses. Of no mention or consideration is the waste of energy to produce this “food” and transport this “food” that very likely has little to no true nutritional value. In fact, one could quite easily make the argument such processed foods and “edible” oils, key products/ingredients of Kraft, actually poison whole societies, inducing cancers, sickness/disease, and obesity. (In essence, products under the guise of “food” that amount to no more than toxic sludge.)

Of course reducing waste may add to Kraft’s bottom line, but even more so if they can achieve this by finding markets for their waste – which they have. In 2012, at a Kraft coffee plant in Vienna, Austria, the facility sent 250 tons of used coffee bean husks to a local biomass plant that generates heat and electricity. Yet biomass is a false solution with the waste externalized onto our health. “Biomass incineration is one of the most expensive, inefficient and polluting ways to make energy — even dirtier than coal in some ways. Forests are destroyed, the climate is cooked, crop lands are wasted, resources are destroyed and low-income communities and communities of color suffer increased health problems from this unnecessary dirty energy source that poses as renewable energy.” ^[Source]

Kraft’s direct and/or indirect support of the corporations that push monoculture and/or genetically engineered crops, is complicity to the immense social and environmental impacts destroying both communities and life of every form.

In 2012 a Kraft coffee plant in St. Petersburg cut waste sent to landfills by 90 percent by reusing coffee bean shipping bags and pallets and by sending off 15,000 tons of coffee grounds to be turned into fertilizer for farms in the area. The reusing of the bags and pellets is common sense and good practise. Yet, one must also remember this same 15,000 tons of coffee contained pesticides and chemicals which would have leached into the earth’s soil, underground aquifers, water systems, our air and inevitably, our bodies and the bodies on non-human life. This is not to mention Kraft, like all multinational food corporations, make billions on the backs of farmers. Starbucks five dollar lattes are full to the brim with the blood and sweat of the farmers that barely survive under the industrialized capitalist system. Support of corporate power dominating agriculture ensures the continuance of exploitation while furthering negative social and community impacts.

Therefore, beneath the layers of Kraft’s zero waste “feat” is little more than green washing with highly evolved and a most sophisticated marketing.

http://killercoke.org/

According to the excerpt, Coca-Cola has also achieved “zero waste”. Yet corporate media fails to report Coca-Cola distributing free “fertilizer” in India, later analyzed to be nothing more than toxic waste. Does the BPA (a known carcinogen) that lines the Coca-Cola cans not qualify as waste? How much one-time use, disposable (including recycled) packaging by Kraft and Coca-Cola alone, ends up in landfills and oceans once it leaves the processing plants? Recycling, a billion dollar energy intensive industry which also creates massive volumes of waste, is not a true solution to the real problem: that of producing items that are simply not necessities in any way shape or form. As a further concern to the environmental issue which is the human rights violations committed by this corporation, do the union leaders assassinated under Coca-Cola’s reign of terror in Columbia constitute waste – or is “human capital” nothing more than a tax write-off under the “third industrial revolution”, that being the “new economy”?

The idea that the same corporations that have brought the apocalypse to or doorstep are the same corporations who will now usher in a new green utopia is just that – a utopian fantasy.

Under an industrialized capitalist economic system, zero waste cannot and will not ever be achieved. To varying degrees, every one of these corporate entities, and the junk they produce (which are things we do not need to survive), have to go. Bare essentials in the most radical sense must be our collective goal.

Next up: Part 17

Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation, and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Risingand Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can follow her on twitter @elleprovocateur]

[Forrest Palmer is an electrical engineer residing in Texas.  He is a part-time blogger and writer and can be found on Facebook. You may reach him at forrest_palmer@yahoo.com.]

parts 1-15(start in 2013 and go forward up to 2016 for all 15 parts here

http://www.theartofannihilation.com/

PART 4:THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHS,

Legalize Hemp,stop using Fossil fuels and Save the Earth.Continued choosing of $$$ over the Earth,is going to leave you with no place left to make $$$. These folks must be the stupidest beings in the Universe.You have to stop looking at your fellow man as a consumer,if you folks are in any hope of getting off this Terminal Path you have set the species on. 

Chapter 8 

Cannabis Hemp seed as 

a Basic World Food 

In 1937, Ralph Loziers, general counsel of the National Institute of Oilseed Products, told the Congressional committee studying marijuana prohibition that "hemp seed. . . is used in all the Oriental nations and also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people every day are using hemp seed in the Orient as food. They have been doing this for many generations, especially in periods of famine. That was over 60 years ago. Today we know hemp seed is the plant kingdom's richest source of life-giving essential fatty acids, and may well be the cure for cancer and heart disease." 

Hemp seed: Humanity's Best 

Single Food Source 

Of the 3 million plus edible plants that grow on Earth, no other single plant source can compare with the nutritional value of hemp seeds. Both the complete protein and the essential oils contained in hemp seeds are in ideal ratios for human nutrition. Only soybeans contain a higher percentage of protein. However, the composition of the protein in hemp seed is unique in the vegetable kingdom. Sixty-five percent of the protein content in hemp seed is in the form of globulin edestin.1 (The word edestin comes from the Greek "edestos," meaning edible.) 

The exceptionally high edestin content of hemp seed combined with albumin, another globular protein contained in all seeds, means the readily available protein in hemp seed contains all the essential amino acids in ideal proportions to assure your body has the necessary building blocks to create proteins like disease-fighting immunoglobulins - antibodies whose job is to ward off infections before the symptoms of sickness set it.2 

Cannabis seed protein even allows a body with nutrition-blocking tuberculosis, or almost any other nutrition-blocking ailment, to get maximum nourishment.* 

* Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, Plenum Press, NY, 1976; Czech. Tubercular Nutritional Study, 1955. 

Even more important for building a strong immune system, hemp seeds are the highest source in the plant kingdom of essential fatty acids. These essential oils, linoleic and linolenic acids, are responsible for the luster in your skin, hair, eyes, and even your thought processes. They lubricate (clear) the arteries and are vital to the immune system. 

These essential fatty acids were used by Dr. Joanna Budwig (nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 1979) to successfully treat "terminal" cancer patients, as well as those suffering from cardiovascular disease, glandular atrophy, gall stones, kidney degeneration, acne, dry skin, menstrual problems and immune deficiency. 

This, as well as other research, prompted William Eidelman, M.D., UCLA, and R. Lee Hamilton, Ed.D., Ph.D. Medical Researcher-Biochemist UCLA Emeritus, to speak out on behalf of "the life-giving values" of cannabis hemp. They state: "These essential oils support the immune system and guard against viral and other insults to the immune system. Studies are in progress using the essential oils to support the immune systems of persons with the H.I.V. virus. So far they have been extremely promising. 

"What is the richest source of these essential oils? Yes, you guessed it, the seeds of the cannabis hemp plant. The insane prohibitions against the most valuable plant on Earth, cannabis hemp, must yield to public demand. The promise of super health and the possibility of feeding the world is at our fingertips." (December 29, 1991 and July 1997) 

Hemp seed extracts, like soybeans, can be spiced to taste like chicken, steak, or pork and can be used to make tofu-type curd and margarine, at less cost than soybeans. Sprouting any seed improves its nutritional value and hemp can be sprouted and used like any other seed sprout for salads or cooking. 

Sprouted hemp seeds make milk, just as soybeans do. Alan "Birdseed" Brady of Santa Cruz, California and Abba Das of Colorado use this milk to make a delicious and nutritious ice cream in many flavors that actually lowers cholesterol levels. 

Hemp seed is ground and used like flour, or cooked, then sweetened and combined with milk to produce a nutritional breakfast cereal - like oatmeal or cream of wheat. This type of porridge is known as a gruel. (Like the fiber, hemp seeds will not get you high.) 

"Hemp is a favorite [bird seed] because of its nourishing oily content." (Margaret McKenny, Birds in the Garden, Reynal & Hitchcock, NY, 1939.) Incredibly, when cannabis hemp is grown for seed, half the weight of the mature, harvested female plant is seed!

English and European fisherman who cast in freshwater lakes and rivers first told me in 1995 that hempseed has always been the preferred bait in Europe for chumming - that is, casting the hempseeds on the water - causing the fish to scramble from all over to get the seeds, thereby getting caught. Not one of the many European fisherman I talked to knew that hemp seeds and marijuana were one in the same. So hempseed is the favorite of fish as well as most birds.

The byproduct of pressing hemp seed for its nutritious vegetable oil is a high protein seed cake. Hemp seed cake was one of the world's principal animal feeds until this century.* Hemp seed can supply a nearly complete diet for all domesticated animals (dogs, cats), many farm animals and poultry, and allows animals maximum weight gain for less than current feed costs. And without any need for artificial growth steroids or other drugs currently poisoning the human race and food chain. 

Isn't it strange - doesn't it make you mad as hell - that the number-one food of all time for most birds, fish, horses, humans, and life in general, is illegal to have naturally and healthfully in the United States of America, as ordered by the Nazi/Gestapo-like Amerikan Drug Enforcement Administration and, through them, the USDA? 

* U.S. Agricultural Index; Frazier, Jack, The Marijuana Farmers, Solar Age Press, New Orleans, LA, 1972. Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill; Udo, Erasmus, 1996. 

Spectre of Worldwide Famine 

By itself, widespread use of hemp seed food protein could save many of the world's children now dying of protein starvation! An estimated 60% of all children born in Third World countries (about 12-20 million a year) will die this way before reaching five years of age. Many times that number have their lives dramatically shortened and/or their brains decimated.3 

Remember, hemp is a hearty plant that grows almost anywhere, even in adverse conditions. Australians survived two prolonged famines in the 19th Century using almost nothing except hemp seeds for protein and hemp leaves for roughage.4 

Furthermore, recent studies indicate that depletion of the ozone layer threatens to reduce world soya production by a substantial amount - up to 30% or even 50%, depending on the fluctuation of the density of the ozone shield. But hemp, on the other hand, resists the damage caused by increasing ultraviolet radiation and actually flourishes in it by producing more cannabinoids which provide protection from ultraviolet light. 5 

It's no wonder that some Central and South Americans hate America and want us out: they see us as ignorant killers. For years, our government demanded the paraquat poisoning of their lands; lands these farmers had grown cannabis on by law since 1545, when King Philip of Spain ordered it grown throughout his empire to provide food, sails, rope, towels, sheets and shirts - as well as providing one of the people's most important medicines for fever, childbirth, epilepsy, and poultices for rheumatism - in short, one of the oldest livelihoods, medicines, food staples and relaxational pleasures. 

In South and Central America today, anyone who is caught growing their old staple, cannabis, has his land expropriated and is imprisoned by the U.S. supported government/military leaders who then qualify for more American foreign and military aid in exchange for continuing this policy of wiping out cannabis. 

A Fundamental Biological 

Link in the Food Chain 

Our politicians, who made these marijuana prohibition laws based on years of disinformation (deliberate misinformation), may have doomed not only birds but also the human race to extinction from another direction. 

Many animals eat birds and their eggs. Birds in the wild are essential to the food chain; and they continue to diminish in population due to, among other things, petrochemical pesticides, herbicides and the lack of hemp seed! With hemp seed in their diet, birds will live 10-20% longer; have more offspring, and their feathers will have more luster and oil, allowing longer flight. 

Prior to 1937, there were more than 10 million acres of seed-laden cannabis hemp growing wild in the U.S. Hundreds of millions of birds fed off them as their favorite and most necessary food until our government began its policy of total eradication of this most primary link in the food chain. 

Oblivious to these inherent biocidal (killing all life) dangers, our government continues this insane policy to exterminate the Earth's number one life giving plant both here and abroad. 

In May 1988, the U.S. asked the United Nations to outlaw cannabis in all forms, including: medicine, food, paper, cloth, and any other use whatsoever. Our government wants to urge the United Nations to begin the largest and most comprehensive program of eradication of any plant in the history of the Earth until not one hemp plant of any type remains. This is the recommendation of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his Republican congress along with many of their Democratic partners in crime against the natural Earth.

Chapter 9 

Economics: Energy, 

Environment and Commerce 

We have explained what hemp has historically meant to this country's economy. Now, we must also consider the future of hemp. 

We predict that the net effect of ending American hemp prohibition will be to generate "ripple effect" economics - a revitalized American agriculture producing hemp as the raw material for a multitude of industries creating millions of good jobs for skilled and semi-skilled professional workers though out America. The resulting wealth will remain in local communities and with farmers, smaller businesses and entrepreneurs like you! 

We now ask you to look at. . . 

Energy & the Economy 

The book Solar Gas, Science Digest, Omni magazine, The Alliance for Survival, the Green Party of Germany, the United States and others put the total figure of our energy costs at 80% of the total dollar expense of living for each human being. 

In validation, 82% of the total value of all issues traded on the New York Stock Exchange and other world stock exchanges, etc., are tied directly to: 

- Energy producers such as Exxon, Shell Oil, Conoco, Con-Edison, and so forth. 

- Energy transporters such as pipeline companies, oil shipping and delivery companies. 

- Refineries and retail sales of Exxon, Mobil, Shell, So. California Edison, Con-Edison, etc. 

Eighty-two percent of all your money means that roughly 33 of every 40 hours you work goes to pay for the ultimate energy cost in the goods and services you purchase, including transportation, heating, cooking, lighting. Americans - 5% of world population - in our insatiable drive for greater "net worth" and "productivity," use 25-40% of the worlds' energy. The hidden cost to the environment cannot be measured. 

Our current fossil energy sources also supply about 80% of the solid and airborne pollution which is quickly poisoning the environment of the planet. (See U.S. EPA report 1983-96 on the coming world catastrophe from carbon dioxide imbalance caused by burning fossil fuels). The best and cheapest substitute for these expensive and wasteful energy methods is not wind or solar panels, nuclear, geothermal and the like, but the evenly distributed light of the sun for growing biomass. 

On a global scale, the plant that produces the most net biomass is hemp. It's the only annually renewable plant on Earth able to replace all fossil fuels. 

In the Twenties, the early oil barons such as Rockefeller of Standard Oil, Rothschild of Shell, etc., became paranoically aware of the possibilities of Henry Ford's vision of cheap methanol fuel,* and they kept oil prices incredibly low - between one dollar and four dollars per barrel (there are 42 gallons in an oil barrel) until 1970 - almost 50 years! Prices were so low, in fact, that no other energy source could compete with it. Then, once they were finally sure of the lack of competition, the price of oil jumped to almost $40 per barrel over the next 10 years. 

* Henry Ford grew marijuana on his estate after 1937, possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain. He made plastic cars with wheat straw, hemp and sisal. (Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1941, "Pinch Hitters for Defense.") In 1892, Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine, which he intended to fuel "by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils." 

By the year 2000, the U.S. will have burned 80% of its petroleum resources, while our coal reserves may last 100-300 years longer. But the decision to continue burning coal has serious drawbacks. This high-sulfur coal is responsible for our acid rain, which already kills 50,000 Americans and 5,000-10,000 Canadians annually. In addition, the acid rains destroy the forests, rivers, and animals. 

(Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1986.) 

Conversion to biomass fuels should begin immediately to stop both planetary pollution and lemming-life genocide, and to make us naturally energy independent. 

Clean, Renewable Fuel Source 

Fuel is not synonymous with petroleum and coal. Biomass energy systems can supply a sustainable source of fuel and will create millions of new clean jobs. Hemp biomass derived fuels and oils can replace every type of fossil fuel energy product. 

During transpiration, the growing hemp plants "breathe in" CO2 (carbon dioxide) to build cell structure; the leftover oxygen is breathed out, replenishing Earth's air supply. Then when the carbon rich hemp biomass is burned for energy the CO2 is released back into the air. The CO2 cycle comes close to ecological balance when the new fuel crop is grown the next year. Growing trees keeps 10 times the carbon dioxide in the Earth by keeping the infrastructure of the microbes, insects, plants, fungi, etc. alive for each tree. The older and bigger the tree, the more carbon dioxide is kept out of the atmosphere. 

(Not all of the biomass crop gets converted into fuels. Some leaves, stalk stubble and all of the roots remain in the field as crop residues. This carbon rich organic matter adds to the soil fertility, and with each passing season a little more carbon dioxide from the air enters to soil, so the biomass fuel crops slowly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide from our polluted atmosphere.) 

Biomass conversion through pyrolysis (applying high heat to organic material in the absence of air or in reduced air) produces clean burning charcoal to replace coal. Sulfur emitted from coal fired boiler smokestacks is the primary cause of acid rain. Measuring acidity on the pH scale, the rainfall in New England often falls between household vinegar and lemon juice. This is bad for every cell membrane the rain comes in contact with, doing the most harm to the simplest life forms. Charcoal contains no sulfur, so when it is burned for industry no sulfur is emitted from the process. 

The biomass "cracking" process also produces non-sulfur fuel oils capable of replacing fossil fuel oils such as diesel oil. And the net atmospheric CO2 doesn't rise when biomass derived fuel oils are burned. 

Pyrolysis uses the same "cracking" technology employed by the petroleum industry in processing fossil fuels. The gasses that remain after the charcoal and fuel oils are extracted from hemp can be used for driving electric power co-generators, too! 

This biomass conversion process can be adjusted to produce charcoal, methanol and fuel oils to process steam, as well as chemicals important to industry: acetone, ethyl acetate, tar, pitch and creosote. 

The Ford Motor Co. successfully operated a biomass "cracking" plant in the 1930's at Iron Mountain, Michigan, using trees for cellulose fuels. (Earth friendly hemp is at least four times as efficient as trees for fuel, and is sustainable.) 

"Progress in Biomass Conversion" Vol. 1, Sarkanen & Tillman, editors; Energy Farming in America, Osburn, Lynn, Access Unlimited. 

Hemp seed contains 30% (by volume) oil. This oil has been used to make high grade diesel fuel oil and aircraft engine and precision machine oil. Throughout history, hemp seed oil was used for lighting in oil lamps. Legend says the genie's lamp burned hemp seed oil, as did Abraham the prophet's. In Abraham Lincoln's time only whale oil came near hemp seed oil in popularity for fuel. 

Biomass for Energy Abundance 

Hemp stems are 80% hurds (pulp byproduct after the hemp fiber is removed from the plant). Hemp hurds are 77% cellulose - a primary chemical feed stock (industrial raw material) used in the production of chemicals, plastics and fibers. Depending on which U.S. agricultural report is correct, an acre of full grown hemp plants can sustainably provide from four to 50 or even 100 times the cellulose found in cornstalks, kenaf, or sugar cane - the planet's next highest annual cellulose plants. 

In most places, hemp can be harvested twice a year and, in warmer areas such as Southern California, Texas, Florida and the like, it could be a year-round crop. Hemp has a short growing season and can be planted after food crops have been harvested. 

An independent, semi-rural network of efficient and autonomous farmers should become the key economic player in the production of energy in this country. 

The United States government pays (in cash or in "kind") for farmers to refrain from growing on approximately 90 million acres of farmland each year, called the "soil bank." And 10-90 million acres of hemp or other woody annual biomass planted on this restricted, un-planted fallow farmland (our Soil Bank) would make energy a whole new ball game and be a real attempt at doing something to save the Earth. There are another 500 million marginal un-planted acres of farmland in America. 

Each acre of hemp would yield 1,000 gallons of methanol. Fuels from hemp, along with the recyclingof paper, etc., would be enough to run American virtually without oil. 

Family Farms or Fossil Fuels? 

In 2000, when our petroleum resources have dwindled to 20% of their original size, America will have 6 choices to avoid economic and environmental ruin: 

- Use more coal, further polluting the environment; 

- Continue to fund nuclear power and risk annihilation of the planet. 

- Convert forests into fuel, permanently altering life sustaining ecosystems; 

- Continually wage wars over foreign oil; 

- Build massive wind, solar, geothermal, and tidal energy systems; 

- Establish energy farms to grow biomass fuels. 

The last two choices are the only rational, life sustaining choices.

Farming only 6% of Continental U.S. acreage with biomass crops would provide all of America's gas and oil energy needs, ending dependence upon fossil fuels. 

Manahan, Stanley E., Environmental Chemistry, 4th edition. 

Hemp is Earth's number one biomass resource; it is capable of producing 10 tons per acre in four months. Hemp is easy on the soil,* sheds its lush foliage throughout the season, adding mulch to the soil and helping retain moisture. Hemp is an ideal crop for the semi-arid West and open range land. 

* Adam Beatty, vice president of the Kentucky Agricultural Society, reported instances of good crops of hemp on the same ground for 14 years in a row without a decline in yield. Betty, A., Southern Agriculture, C.M. Saxton & Co., NY: 1843, pg. 113. USDA Yearbook, 1913. 

Hemp is the only biomass source available that is capable of making the U.S. energy independent. Ultimately, the world has no other rational environmental choice but to give up fossil fuels. 

So, What's the Catch? 

The "catch" is obvious: The energy companies! They own must of the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, liquor, and tobacco companies, and are intertwined with insurance companies and banks. 

According to the press, many politicians now in power are bought and paid for by the energy companies, and their U.S. government arm is the CIA - "The Company" - (Robert Ludlum, etc.). The Bush/Quayle Administration was uniquely tied to oil, newspapers, pharmaceuticals - and the CIA. 

The world struggle for money is actually a struggle for energy, as it is through energy that we may produce food, shelter, transportation and entertainment. It is this struggle which often erupts into open war. If we remove the cause, these conflicts may never occur. 

(Carl Sagan; and U.S. EPA prediction, 1983, of worldwide disaster in the making with 30 to 50 years.) 

Energy Security 

If introduced to Third World nations, hemp biomass could drastically cut our overseas aid and reasons for war, while raising the quality of life there by quantum leaps. 

New, non-polluting industries will spring up everywhere. The world economy will boom like never before. The race of man would at last be betting on environmental survival instead of indulging in the lemming-like (suicidal) environmental survival instead of indulging in the lemming-like (suicidal) consumption of fossil fuel, which threatens all life on the planet. 

Free Enterprise and High Profit 

There are many other areas of the economy that would benefit from ending hemp prohibition and the resulting stimulation of commerce in rediscovered hemp products, according to the Hempstead Company, Ecolution, The Body Shop, Hanf Haus, etc. 

Legal hemp will return billions of dollars worth of natural resource potential back to the farmers and bring millions of good jobs in energy production to America's heartland. Hemp energy farmers will become our nation's largest producers of raw materials. 

Family farms will be saved. Crops can be tailored to the needs of the nation. Hemp can be grown for BDF (biomass derived fuels) resources at about $30 per ton. Hemp seed crops will again supply the paint and varnish industries with a superior organic and life-sustaining alternative to petrochemicals. Hemp seed oil has chemical properties similar to linseed oil. And oil has chemical properties similar to linseed oil. And the market is wide open for highly nutritious and delicious foods made from hemp seed with its health giving essential fatty acids and proteins. 

Hemp grown for fiber will take the paper and textile industry out of the hands of the multinational corporations, and back to the local communities. 

Research by various hemp business associations indicate there are around 50,000 non-smoking commercial uses of hemp that are economically viable and market competitive. These include: 

Long-Wearing High Fashion 

Drawing on hemp fiber's special attributes: absorbency, insulation, strength and softness, clothing manufacturers and designers will once again put hemp into linen to produce new lines of durable and attractive clothing, rugs and textiles of all kinds. 

The arrival of imported hemp-cotton blended clothing from China in 1989 marked the beginning of a new era for the rapidly-changing world of fashion. And now, in 1998, companies such as Hempstead Company (Santa Ana, CA); CHA - Coalition for Hemp Awareness (Chandler Heights, AZ); Hemp Connection (Whitehorn, CA), Ecolution (Fairfax, VA); and Ohio Hempery (Guysville, OH) all create beautiful and durable fashions and accessories from many varieties of 100% hemp fabric imported from China, Hungary, Romania, and Poland. 

While we applaud the efforts of these nations in supplying first-rate hemp fabrics, we look forward to the day when U.S. hemp fabric will share the runway! 

Outerwear, warm bed sheets, soft towels (hemp is four times more water absorbent than cotton), diapers, (even disposable ones that you don't have to cut down trees to make), upholstery, wall coverings, natural rugs, even the world's best soap - all these can now be designed and made from 100% hemp; generally better, cheaper, more durably, and ecologically safer. 

Trade barriers on hemp and laws restricting the use of imported cannabis fibers must be removed. 

Right now textiles and apparel are the biggest share of imports into the U.S., at 59%. In 1989, textile imports accounted for 21% of the U.S. merchandise trade deficit. Foreign governments often subsidize their textile industries and do not require companies to follow environmental and health regulations.* Hardy hemp does not cause the huge range of environmental problems associated with cotton. 

* The Washington Spectator, Vol. 17, No. 4; Feb. 15, 1991. 

The United States imports more textiles than anything else. The government no longer obstructs hemp textile and apparel importation. But, hemp textiles will not be fully cost competitive until hemp fiber can be grown and processed domestically, avoiding bloated federal import fees and lowering the costs of transportation. 

Sturdier Paper Products 

The devastated environments and job markets of the American Northwest and other timber regions stand to make a dramatic comeback once hemp is reintroduced to the domestic paper industry. 

Recent studies indicate that depletion of the ozone layer threatens to substantially reduce world loblolly pine production (the major source of pulp in paper) - by up to 30% or even 50%, depending on the fluctuation of the density of the ozone shield. But hemp not only resists the damage caused by increased ultraviolet radiation - it actually flourishes in it. 

Increased UV radiation causes hemp to produce more glandular oils and increases the weight of the plant. (Teramura, Alan, University of MD study, Discover Magazine, September 1989.) 

Paper mills can return to full production levels and loggers will find new work in hemp trades. 

Truck drivers can continue to haul pulp to the mills, and lumber for construction, although the price of lumber will go down as other demands on our timber resources are reduced by substituting farm-grown hemp for forest grown wood pulp. 

(William Conde, Conde Redwood Lumber, Jim Evans, Oregon Hemp) 

There will also still be a lot of work to do in reforestation. Our rivers will go through a period of recovery when hemp replaces wood pulp in the paper industry, resulting in a 60-80% reduction of paper-making chemicals being dumped into them. 

This means more fish and more fishing, as well as increased camping and tourism in the beautiful and vital new-growth forest regions - and the spared old-growth forests. 

Biodegradable Replacement 

for Plastic 

Cellulose is a biodegradable organic polymer. Coal tar, the primary resource for synthetic polymers like nylon, is a non-biodegradable fossil resource. It is not part of the living ecology of Earth. It smothers life wherever it is dumped or spilled. 

From hemp, a source of high-grade cellulose, comes paper that is stronger and has better folding endurance than wood pulp paper.* Hemp cardboard and paper bags will last longer, with a more useful secondary life, than similar products made from wood pulp or plastic. 

* Dewey & Merrill, Bulletin #404, U.S. Dept. of Ag. 1916. 

Spin-Off Trades & Taxes 

Biochemical resources obtained from hemp can be used in literally tens of thousands of products from paint to dynamite. Each application means new business opportunities and new jobs. 

As each new hemp trade develops, money will flow from it to re-energize seemingly unrelated areas of the economy. The American worker and soon-to-be-rich entrepreneurs will bring millions of new jobs and new products to the marketplace. 

The will also buy millions of homes, cars and other non-hemp goods - or will they be hemp also? - thus stimulating a real economic expansion based on the "ripple-out" effect, rather than former President Reagan's voodoo "trickle down" economics which, in fact, pumped money directly into the bloodstream of corporate America rather than benefiting America's heartland. 

Revived farms mean more purchases of equipment and each new business creates spin-off jobs in the shipping, marketing and commodities areas. 

Farms, banks and investment houses would also realize large profits, and the billions of hemp-dollars in the legitimate economy would increase tax revenues and increase the liquid capital available for investment and purchasing of consumer goods. 

Federal, state and local governments would realize a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues without raising taxes or insanely continuing to poison the earth.* 

* If the marijuana market were legal, state and federal governments would collect billions of dollars annually," said Ethan Nadelmann, former assistant professor of politics at Princeton University (who is now in 1998 director of The Lindesmith Foundation). "Instead, they expend billions in what amounts to a subsidy of organized criminals." 

(L.A. Times, Nov. 20, 1989, pg. A-18.) 

George Soros' Lindesmith Foundation is supporting many of the medical marijuana and relegalization state initiatives currently going on around the United States.[About the only worthwhile thing this guy does DC] 

In fact, the Lindesmith Foundation financially supported Dennis Peron's medical marijuana initiative (Proposition 215) in California, that passed in 1996. 

In 1997-98, Soros funded medical marijuana initiatives in such states as Washington, Oregon, Washington, D.C., Maine and Colorado, and helped fund the referendum that was successful in stopping Oregon's legislature and governor from re-criminalizing cannabis in June 1997. 

Green Economy 

When American farmers grown hemp to supply American industries with the primary feed stocks for fiber, fabric, fuel, food, medicines, plastics and recreational/relaxational herbal products we will see a rapid greening of the land and economy. 

The green economy based upon the use of agricultural resources to supply industry will create a diversified locally based system of production. This decentralized green economy will enable everyone to participate and share in the wealth of a truly free market democracy. For there can be no true democracy unless every citizen has the opportunity to share in the wealth of the nation. 

Land and Soil Reclamation 

Land reclamation is another compelling economic and ecological argument for hemp cultivation. 

Until this century, our pioneers and ordinary American farmers used cannabis to clear fields for planting, as a fallow year crop, and after forest fires to prevent mud slides and loss of watershed. 

Hemp seeds put down a 10 to 12-inch root in only 30 days, compared to the one-inch root put down by the rye or barley grass presently used by the U.S. Government. 

Southern California, Utah and other states used cannabis routinely in this manner until about 1915. It also breaks up compacted, overworked soil. 

In the formerly lush Himalayan region of Bangladesh, Nepal and Tibet there is now only a light moss covering left as flash floods wash thousands of tons of topsoil away. 

Independent Bangladesh, (formerly East Bengal, India) which literally means "canna-bis-land-people" (it was formerly called East Bengal province, a name derived from bhang-cannabis, la-land), signed an "anti-drug" agreement with the U.S., promising not to grow hemp in the 1970's. Since that time, it has suffered disease, starvation and decimation, due to unrestrained flooding. 

Hemp seeds broadcast over eroding soil could reclaim land the world over. The farmed out desert regions can be brought back year after year, not only slowing the genocide of starvation, but easing threats of war and violent revolution. 

Natural Guard 

Instead of a National Guard, why not establish a Natural Guard of environmental soldiers to be our front line for survivial - planting trees, harvesting biomass (e.g. hemp) from marginal farm lands? 

A Natural Guard of electricians, plumbers, engineers and laborers who work rebuilding the infrastructure of America; our roads, bridges, dams, canals, sewers, railroad tracks, etc. 

Isn't this the humane, civilized and socially responsible way to use our human resources, rather than warehousing people like animals in prisons? 

World War II: 

Our energy needs are an undeniable national security priority. But first, let's look what Uncle Sam can do when pushed into action: 

In early 1942, Japan cut off our supplies of vital hemp and course fibers. Marijuana, which had been outlawed in the United States as the "Assassin of Youth" just five years earlier, was suddenly safe enough for our government to ask the kids in the Kentucky 4-H clubs to grow the nation's 1943 seed supply. Each youth was urged to grow at least half an acre, but preferably two acres of hemp for seed. 

(University of Kentucky Agricultural Extension, Leaflet 25, March 1943) 

In 1942-43 all American farmers were required to attend showings of the USDA film Hemp for Victory, sign that they had seen the film, and read a hemp cultivation booklet. Hemp havesting machinery was made available at low or no cost. Five-dollar tax stamps were available and 350,000 acres of cultivated hemp was the goal by 1943. 

"Patriotic" American farmers, from 1942 through 1945, who agreed to grow hemp were waived from serving in the military, along with their sons; that's how vitally important hemp was to America during World War II. 

Meanwhile, from the late 1930's through 1945, "patriotic" German farmers were given a comic book-like instruction manual by the Nazi government, urging them to grow hemp for the war. 

The Most Recent Time America Asked Our Farmers to Grow More Marijuana . . . 

. . . was in 1942, in a 14-minute propaganda piece entitled: 

Hemp for Victory 

Following is a transcript of the film's dramatic narrative (courtesy of High Times): 

Long ago, when these ancient Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in their service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850 all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable. 

A 44-gun frigate like our cherished "Old Ironsides" took over 60 tons of hemp for rigging, including an anchor cable 25 inches in circumference. The Conestoga wagons and prairie schooners of pioneer days were covered with hemp canvas. Indeed the very word canvas comes from the Arabic word for hemp. In those days hemp was an important crop in Kentucky and Missouri. Then came cheaper imported fibers for cordage, like jute, sisal and Manila hemp, and the culture of hemp in American declined.[Lie...DC] 

But now, with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese, and shipment of jute from India curtailed, American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy, as well as of our industry. In 1942, patriotic farmers at the government's request planted 36,000 acres of seed hemp, and increase of several thousand percent. The goal for 1943 is 50,000 acres of seed hemp. 

In Kentucky much of the seed hemp acreage is on river bottom land such as this. Some of the fields are inaccessible except by boat. Thus plans are afoot for a great expansion of a hemp industry as a part of the war program. This film is designed to tell farmers how to handle this ancient crop now little known outside Kentucky and Wisconsin. 

This is hemp seed. Be careful how you use it. For to grow hemp legally, you must have a federal registration and tax stamp. This is provided for in your contract. Ask your county agent about it. Don't forget. [retarded DC]

Hemp demands a rich, well drained soil such as is found here in the Blue Grass region of Kentucky or in central Wisconsin. It must be loose and rich in organic matter. Poor soils won't do. Soil that will grow good corn will usually grow hemp.[Another Lie. Hemp will grow almost anywhere DC] 

Hemp is not hard on the soil. In Kentucky it has been grown for several years on the same ground, through this practice is not recommended. A dense and shady crop, hemp tends to choke out weeds. Here's a Canada thistle that couldn't stand the competition, dead as a dodo. Thus hemp leaves the ground in good condition for the following crop. 

For fiber, hemp should be sown closely, the closer the rows, the better. These rows are spaced about four inches. This hemp has been broadcast. Either way it should be sown thick enough to grow a slender stalk. Here's an ideal stand: the right height to be harvested easily, thick enough to grow slender stalks that are easy to cut and process. 

Stalks like these here on the left yield the most fiber and the best. Those on the right are too course and woody. For seed, hemp is planted in hills like corn. Sometimes by hand. Hemp is a dioecious plant. The female flower is inconspicuous. But the male flower is easily spotted. In seed production after the pollen has been shed, these male plants are cut out. These are the seeds on a female plant. 

Hemp for fiber is ready to harvest when the pollen is shedding and the leaves are falling. In Kentucky, hemp harvest comes in August. Here, the old standby has been the self-rake reaper, which has been used for a generation or more. 

Hemp grows so luxuriantly in Kentucky that harvesting is sometimes difficult, which may account for the popularity of the self-rake with its lateral stroke. A modified rice binder has been used to some extent. This machine works well on average hemp. Recently the improved hemp harvester, used for many years in Wisconsin, has been introduced in Kentucky. This machine spreads the hemp in a continuous swath. It is a far cry from this fast and efficient modern harvester, that doesn't stall in the heaviest hemp. 

In Kentucky, hand cutting is practiced in opening fields for the machine. In Kentucky, hemp is shucked as soon as safe, after cutting, to be spread out for retting later in the fall. In Wisonsin, hemp is harvested in September. Here the hemp harvester with automatic spreader is standard equipment. Note how smoothly the rotating apron lays the swaths preparatory to retting. Here it is a common and essential practice to leave headlands around hemp fields. These strips may be planted with other crops, preferably small grain. Thus the harvester has room to make its first round without preparatory hand cutting. The other machine is running over corm stubble. When the cutter bar is much shorter than the hemp is tall, overlapping occurs. The standard cut is eight to nine feet. 

The length of time hemp is left on the ground to ret depends on the weather. The swaths must be turned to get a uniform ret. When the woody core breaks away readily like this, the hemp is about read to pick up and bind into bundles. Well-retted hemp is light to dark grey. The fiber tends to pull away from the stalks. The presence of stalks in the bough-string stage indicates that retting is well underway. When hemp is short or tangled or when the ground is too wet for machines, it's bound by hand. A wooden bucket is used. Twine will do for tying, but the hemp itself makes a good band. 

When conditions are favorable, the pickup binder is commonly used. The swaths should lie smooth and even with the stalks parallel. The picker won't work well iln tangled hemp. After binding, hemp is shucked as soon as possible to stop further retting. In 1942, 14,000 acres of fiber hemp were harvested in the United States. The goal for 1943 is 300,000 acres of fiber hemp. Thus hemp, the old standby cordage fiber, is staging a strong comeback. 

This is Kentucky hemp going into the dryer at a mill at Versailles. In the old days braking was done by hand. One of the hardest jobs known to man. Now the power braker makes quick work of it. 

Spinning American hemp into rope, yarn or twine in the old Kentucky river mill at Frankfort, Kentucky. Another pioneer plant that has been making cordage for more than a century. All such plants will presently be turning out products spun from American-grown hemp: twine of various kinds for tying and upholsterer's work; rope for marine rigging and towing; for hay forks, derricks, and heavy duty tackle; light duty firehose; thread for shoes for millions of American soldiers; and parachute webbing for our paratroopers. As for the United States Navy, every battleship requires 34,000 feet of rope; and other ships accordingly. Here in the Boston Navy Yard, where cables for frigates were made long ago, crews are now working night and day making cordage for the fleet. In the old days rope yarn was spun by hand. The rope yarn feeds through holes in an iron plate. 

This is Manila hemp from the Navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When it is gone, American hemp will go on duty again: hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines, hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails . . . 

"Hemp for Victory!" 

Footnotes: Chapter 8

1. Walker, David W., Ph.D., Can Hemp Save Our Planet?, citing St. Angelo, A.J., E.J. Conkerton, J.M. Dechary, and A.M. Altschul, 1966; Biochimica of Biophysica Acta, vol. 121, pp. 181; St. Angelo, A., L.y. Yatsu and A.M. Altschul, 1968; Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, vol. 124, pp. 199- 205; Stockwell, D.M., J.M. Dechary, and A.M. Altschul, 1964, Biochimica Biophysica Act, vol. 82, pp. 221 

2. Morroson, R.T. Organic Chemistry, 1960; Kimber, Gray, Stackpole, Textbook of Anatomy and Physiology, 1943. 

3. World Hunger Project, Save the Children, EST, Forum. 

4. Frazier, Jack, The Marijuana Farmers, Solar Age Press, New Orleans, LA, 1972; also see Australian history books. 

5. Teramura, Alan, University of Maryland study, Discover magazine, September, 1989; Congressional testimony of Ralph Loziers, National Oil Seed Institute, before House Ways and Means Committee, 1937.