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Category: Journalism

‘Hemp For Victory’: The Government Made This World War II Cannabis Film Disappear
Troops in a landing craft approach "Omaha" Beach on D-Day during the invasion of Normandy, June 1944. (Wikimedia Commons / Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives.)
May 30, 2017
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‘Hemp For Victory’: The Government Made This World War II Cannabis Film Disappear

Posted in Journalism, and Ministry of Hemp

During World War II, hemp was so desperately needed by the Allies that the United States briefly reversed its stance on hemp and encouraged farmers to grow it. Afterwards, they tried to erase all records of the campaign.

Millions of people are rediscovering the benefits of hemp, both as a health remedy in CBD oil and a raw ingredient in dozens of hemp-based products. Far fewer are aware of hemp’s history in the U.S. as a cash crop, or the lengths that the government went to suppress that history.

One of the most remarkable examples is “Hemp For Victory,” an educational film produced by the USDA in 1942 that encouraged farmers to grow hemp. After the war, when growing hemp again became illegal again, the government hid the existence of the film for years until pro-cannabis activists forced them to bring it back into the light.

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Kit O’Connell Guest Hosts @WeAreDisabled, Disability Twitter Account
Kit O'Connell, wearing an "Occupy Love" t-shirt, tweets on his phone from the Occupy Austin encampment in early 2012. In the background, activists hold protest signs. (Larry Singleton)
May 25, 2017
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Kit O’Connell Guest Hosts @WeAreDisabled, Disability Twitter Account

Posted in Journalism

From May 18 to May 25, I hosted the Twitter account @WeAreDisabled. Similar to other group accounts like @sweden or @realscientists, this Twitter passes from person to person with the only common theme being disability.

The account admins created a Storify of all my tweets, but below I’ll link to my main threads so you can click through and read them if you like.

First I introduced myself:

Read moreKit O’Connell Guest Hosts @WeAreDisabled, Disability Twitter Account
Hemp Makes Great Plastic, So Why Isn’t Hemp Plastic Everywhere?
Sea turtle mosaic art constructed from plastic trash found discarded on a beach. (Flickr / Colleen Proppe, CC NC license)
May 22, 2017
Kit
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Hemp Makes Great Plastic, So Why Isn’t Hemp Plastic Everywhere?

Posted in Ministry of Hemp

Plastic is an inescapable part of our everyday lives, so why is almost all of it still made from polluting, non-renewable petrochemicals?

You may have heard that agricultural hemp, the non-mind-altering cousin of cannabis (commonly known as marijuana), has dozens of potential uses from clothing to paper.

Since virtually all climate scientists agree that we must replace our dependence on fossil fuels, and given that hemp can even make the soil cleaner, it’s surprising that this miracle crop isn’t in wider use.

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While The U.S. Prepares To Crush Net Neutrality, Other Countries Have Made It A Basic Human Right
Activists rally in India in April 2015 in support of net neutrality. (Wikimedia Commons / Viggy Prahbhu, CC SA license)
May 17, 2017
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While The U.S. Prepares To Crush Net Neutrality, Other Countries Have Made It A Basic Human Right

Posted in Journalism, and Lee Camp

Many countries have made net neutrality a basic freedom. Yet now, the FCC is planning to make sure the U.S. is not one of those countries.

Today, the internet is classified as a “common carrier” in the U.S., which forces telecommunications companies and internet service providers to treat all content more or less equally. If Ajit Pai, chair of the FCC and former Verizon lawyer, has his way, the internet could be reclassified by the end of the summer, replacing internet freedom with a corporate free-for-all of greed and political corruption.

Though the internet was born in the U.S., our ISPs are also slower and more expensive than other countries, so maybe it’s no surprise that we’re behind the curve in net neutrality, too.

Read moreWhile The U.S. Prepares To Crush Net Neutrality, Other Countries Have Made It A Basic Human Right
May 11, 2017
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Why The United Nations Protects Empires While Failing To Protect Human Rights

Posted in Act Out!, Creative Commons, Journalism, and Video

So, you might be surprised to learn that Saudi Arabia recently gained a seat on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

That’s right — a country where male guardianship requires that women get permission to do everything from receive an education to travel, a country where women can not drive or leave the house without proper head-to-toe covering – and when they do everything is gender segregated — that Saudi Arabia was given a three year term as a member of the U.N. agency whose sole mission is to promote gender equality and women’s rights. Take a moment with that.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a nonprofit that tries to keep the international body accountable called the move “absurd — and morally reprehensible.”

Absurd as it may be — and it is fucking ridiculous — what’s even more absurd is that the appointment isn’t a sign that something is wrong at the U.N.

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Containers: Global Capitalism At Sea & Transforming The Planet
Shipping containers in a variety of colors are piled into a massive wall at the Port of Oakland. (Flickr / -tarat-, CC NC ND license)
May 10, 2017
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Containers: Global Capitalism At Sea & Transforming The Planet

Posted in Creative Commons, Occupy Wall Street, and Radical Media

The objects around you right now, from your phone to the clothes you wear to the coffee in your mug, most likely traveled to America in a shipping container on a massive cargo ship.

This simple fact, both obvious and mostly overlooked, has radically transformed virtually every aspect of global capitalism over the past several decades. That prosaic shipping container, and the process called “containerization,” are the subject of a recent 8-part audio podcast documentary called “Containers.”

The podcast is sponsored by a shipping company, which stirred some controversy, but the show usually reads as if it’s most sympathetic toward the rank and file workers of the docks, and the people who live nearby, than toward the industry as a whole.. While “Containers” is hardly anti-capitalist, the series and its creator Alexis Madrigal are openly critical of the consequences of unchecked growth.

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