The seeds were scattered to “liberate our land from the foundations of war.”
May 8, 2014 |
Wearing the " V for Vendetta"-inspired Guy Fawkes masks of the Occupy movement, a group of 50 activists in Italy cut through barbed wire to enter the Fontega US army base on May 1. They filmed themselves scattering marijuana seeds (as well as a few corn and tomato seeds) around the compound.
According to a press release, the rogue gardeners were part of Italy's No Dal Molin movement and their actions were in protest of violent U.S. policies. They planted 200,000 seeds in all, “to liberate our land from the foundations of war.” The statement speaks up against the failed U.S. war on drugs and corrupt U.S. policies at large.
The linked press release is in Italian, by the way. I can't read or translate, but we like to link to supporting material.
This gave me an idea.
To many people's continued annoyance, I am forever linking, comparing and contrasting the stupidity of wildly legal guns to wildly illegal cannabis.
NOBODY can provide any data or study that shows marijuana is killing people. They just can't
There's a LOT of data to be had regarding gun violence but we all know of the NRA's vicious opposition to data collection on gun violence and deaths:
“The abuse of taxpayer funds for anti-gun political propaganda under the guise of ‘research’ is unethical,” spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said in a statement to ProPublica. “That is why Congress should stand firm against President Obama’s scheme to undermine a fundamental constitutional right.”
Despite this sort of stonewalling, we know about 33-35000 Americans die from gun "incidents" each year: accidental shootings (negligence) homicide, suicide, etc...: everybody knows guns kill people.
Accurate data collection would be INVALUABLE for improving efforts to reduce deaths from guns, but, for the most part, we already know many tens of thousands of people are killed every year - about 10 people each day.
Guns kill, marijuana doesn't, it's that simple, so why are we upside down with the legalities?
It is fundamentally wrong for guns to be a legal "buy as many as you can carry" sorts of commodity, like charcoal and car tires, while marijuana is kept bitterly illegal, reform efforts fought bitterly every single step of the way, cops killing people because of it, yet it has never killed anybody. It won't even pinch your fingers like your gun will.
NOTE: This is not about 'banning" guns. This is about protesting the unbelievable and inappropriate lackadaisical attitude many gun lovers appear to have regarding the lethality of their guns and their resistance to ANYTHING that would require them to treat them a bit more seriously.
The situation is unacceptably absurd and stupid and dangerous.
So I think Americans who are opposed to handguns and assault-styled high-capacity rifles should engage in an ongoing protest: plant 10 marijuana seeds for every handgun in America (there's like 200 million, aren't there?) and 100 seeds for representing "assault weapons".
Plant them everywhere imaginable. Golf courses, the tomato plant section at Wal Mart, police stations, city and county buildings, state parks, etc...
Everywhere.
There is no reason under the sun we should be able to go buy a gun and a ton of ammo but we can't go buy 7 grams of herb and smoke it at home, bothering - and killing - nobody.
It's just too stupid.