Plainsman1963

Industrial Hemp and Hurricane Katrina
09-05-06 | MensNewsDaily.Com | Jonathan David Morris

The same day our nation commemorated the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I learned that the state of California had passed—and was now waiting for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign—a new measure legalizing industrial hemp crops. This is very encouraging news. It’s just unfortunate no one realizes this is part of the Hurricane Katrina story. With all due respect for those who died or were stranded on their rooftops, if I was in charge of a cable news station, I would’ve made industrial hemp a main part of my anniversary coverage.

Hemp used to be a common thing in America. It also used to be an integral part of our nation’s economy. This changed in the 1930s, when fear over its mind-altering cousin, marijuana, led to a national hemp ban. Except for a short reprieve during World War II, it’s been illegal to farm the stuff ever since.

Today, many products—such as clothing, food, and rope—are made from hemp imported from Canada. Most Americans understand that owning such products in no way, shape, or form makes them part of some underground drug culture. Hemp remains illegal, however, for two important reasons. One, because Washington insists hemp crops would serve as cover for marijuana growers. And two, because the rest of us have accepted—or at least decided to live with—Washington’s assessment.

As a result, it is very difficult to have a rational industrial hemp discussion. Most people realize hemp isn’t the same as marijuana. However, most people think you’d have to be a paranoid stoner to so much as bring it up.

When you really start to consider this issue, you start to wonder, though: Who’s paranoid here? The stoners who brag about hemp’s many uses? Or the people too frightened by visions of stoners to have this conversation? Hemp is a viable alternative fuel source. It’s clean. It’s renewable. And it can be used in place of many synthetic, oil-based materials. It’s actually quite odd that we’d choose to import it rather than grow it—especially in light of our usual “Made In America” mentality. Just think what this crop could do to ease our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Even if it was the same as marijuana, you’d still have to be crazy—or paranoid—not to use it.

This brings me back to Hurricane Katrina.

By now, most people seem to agree Washington failed the city of New Orleans. Why this happened is up for debate, but one possible reason I don’t hear many people discuss anymore is the fact that our soldiers were too busy overseas to help rescue all those folks on their rooftops. Leaving aside whether disaster recovery is the military’s job, I would say this is a fair argument.

Our men and women sign up to defend our country. That’s why they’re “our” men and women. Often, though, they end up defending other countries. It’s been this way since September 11th, but it was like this long before September 11th, too. America maintains a military presence of some size or another in roughly 130 countries. This makes it hard for us to defend the only country that ought to matter to America, which, of course, is America.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you the Iraq War, for instance, was “all about oil.” Like all conflicts, it was about many things—some more or less noble than others. But if it’s true our military was too busy in Iraq to help the people of New Orleans, then you have to ask yourself: Why does America maintain such a broad overseas presence to begin with? Why do we care what happens in the Middle East? Why should it even concern us? Oil isn’t the only answer to these questions, but it is an answer for each of them. Oil is crucial to us. We need it. And this means we need to worry about other countries, because they’re the ones who have it.

I’m not naïve enough to think industrial hemp would cut our ties with the Middle East overnight. If I had to guess, it wouldn’t even cut our ties with the Middle East altogether. We would still need oil for something or another. But that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with doing business. Just imagine how things in New Orleans might have been different if we hadn’t been draining our resources elsewhere, though. Maybe the military would’ve been here to help rescue people more quickly. Or maybe we would have simply fixed the levees before they broke and drowned the city.

Of course, this is all conjecture. There’s no way to actually prove it. But before you complain about Washington failing New Orleans, just consider how industrial hemp would alter such problems as oil, war, and pollution. Until this useful crop becomes legal, I would argue Washington is failing us all.

dredpiratrobert

Very well-put

The industrial uses of this plant are vast in number. Personally, I find it appaling that our country has gravitated toward crops such as cotton and tobacco when the superior fiber for textile and construction is obviously HEMP, and the documented dangers of tobacco are and were already well known. Pollution from petrol based plastics and resins is quite noxious and could easily be replaced by superior Hemp products leaving fiberglass reinforced poly-esters in the history books. [url=[URL="http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10095/20011212/forests.org/ric/good_wood/hemp.htm"]
When Katrina hit NewOrleans it was barely surprising to see the loooong delay in emergency response. So sad...

What's REALLY scary; what do you suppose will happen if the chinese suddenly decide to attack the Pacific coast? especially if our NAVY were tied up in Arabia... !!! It could take a month for the fastest ships (25kts.) to cross the Indian Ocean, Navigate through Polynesia, and cross the Pacific to be in a position of Defense at our shore...

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Buzzby

It's probably not discussed because the deployment of troops to other countries wasn't the reason federal aid took so long to arrive in New Orleans. The personnel and equipment were available. What was lacking was the will and level of organization to move them into place quickly.

This guy obviously skipped directly from the 19th Century to the 21st Century. Troops are deployed around the world to defend America before the enemy is knocking on our doors. American troops are there to prevent conflicts that might turn into wars.

While I think the Iraq war is totally unnecessary and unproductive, the deployment of troops to deal with our enemies before they can reach US soil makes more sense than waiting around to respond to a (probably) terrorist attack against which conventional military would do little good.

While hemp would certainly reduce some of the need for foreign oil it wouldn't have enough of an effect to free us from our dependency on foreign oil.

Something or other like: gas for our cars, diesel fuel for our trucks, heating oil for our homes...

That might be true if we didn't have enough thermonuclear-tipped, MIRVed missiles to take out every city in China five or six times. No one worries about a conventional military attack on the continental US because such an attack would be met with total nuclear destruction of the attacking country. Terrorist attacks are the credible threat and massed ground troops don't appear to be the best way to deal with that threat. We have a huge sledge hammer of a military, but a sledge hammer is not the right tool for every job.

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dredpiratrobert

Thank you for your views Buzz' but it doesn't give me any peace of mind.

You wrote:

"such an attack would be met with total nuclear destruction of the attacking country."

You'd think so... but a total nuclear attack can cause a lot of other problems for neighboring countries as well and some of those neighboring countries have developed or are developing WMD of thier own (nukes, EMP, etc..) and may take offense.


The Himalaya regions of China contain a glacier system which feeds the watersheds and therefore the headwaters of the major waterways of more than 7 different countries. A radioactive plume/fallout could and concievably would reach deep into other countries as well. such actions may evoke a retalitory action from other nations, like Korea or India (or the BJP in India) for instance. As an added threat China recently (1998 or ?) intercepted data pertaining to Saturn class rockets which could quite possibly pose a missle threat if utilized... at least that's what we were told. Russia is over there too...

Point is, if the NAVY were at homeport then the battle would happen at sea. If an attack were launched or missles fired from China there's a chance that we'd nuke thier homeland and still get a beating on our side regardless.

I'd stand and fight. I'd whip them with wet noodles if that's all I had to fight with...

Abomonog

Actually. the guy is right. With South Korea as it's most glaring (and long lived) example, our military currently occupies over 100 countries that have absolutely no value to us other than the fact that we feel we need to. Who cares if North Korea invades the south? IF they're nuclear already it matters not how much land they own. In some cases we attempt to force the occupation (Venisualia), in others we are protecting dictatorships from democratic invasions (Columbia, Brazil). And in yet others we are mearly helping the local governments keep the proper people where they belong, (Chad, Niger, Togo, and pretty much the rest of the Diamond Belt and Ivory Coast) or were just protecting those big American mining companies in South Africa from the locals whome, some 2 decades after the supposed end of apartheid, who would just really like their land back.

It is true that in many cases our presence prevents wars that would otherwise break out, but we have destabilized the middle east, and in as many cases as not, our military is mearly protecting a privately owned American corporation that sits on some foreign native soil that was sold out from under the locals by a greedy government. Or we are protecting some Banana Republic from it's neighbors. Truth is that our military is scattered all over the world and a large percentage of it is doing crap work. We are so wrapped up in chasing ghosts that we have out homeland open to a direct assault. We worry about about chasing puny terrorist orginizations that we could have destroyed in a single blitz campaign when China has amassed a ground force that is 30 times larger than our our entire military. We worry about Anthrax attacks when we should be worrying weather our largest rival has a Navy capable of carrying 10 million infantrymen across the Pacific. Bin Laden can kamikazi all the jetliners he wants. It is not going to kill the massive lemming colony that is America. But if China decides to land a conventional Army anywhere in our hemisphere and it will take our entire military to stop them. And we don't have our entire military.

ATM our relationship with China is such that they're not like to attack by any means but they support Iran, and Iran is currently America's next target in the War on Terror....

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