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Tag: Featured

You’re Never ‘Just’ A Journalist: Reporting From The Left & The Far Right (Gonzo Notes)

Posted in Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, and Journalism

It’s a gift to be a journalist in this moment.

Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves. It’s the only way to get through.

Freelancers (like I am right now) spend every month counting our pennies, making sure we’ll make rent and have a little left over for food and coffee and the other vices of our profession. For those lucky few with a steady job, they’re wondering how long until downsizing and budget cuts will put them out on the street.

In addition to journalism’s grim financial picture, we’re finding ourselves targeted by the government and by far-right fascists for violence and repression in a way we haven’t faced in decades.

New Large Scale Study Proves Effectiveness Of CBD For Epilepsy

Posted in Ministry of Hemp

A newly released study adds more scientific evidence that CBD oil can relieve the symptoms of epilepsy.

Published May 2017 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the new research focuses on CBD as a treatment for Dravet syndrome, a complex and difficult to treat form of childhood epilepsy.

Worldwide, parents of kids with epilepsy, along with adult sufferers as well, are already using hemp-based CBD extract to great benefit. The medical establishment and the law, however, have been slower to catch up.

No Platform For Islamophobia: How Austin Shut Down ‘March Against Sharia’ White Supremacist Rally

Posted in Austin, and Journalism

It was called the “March Against Sharia,” but thanks to a lot of very loud Austin activists this white supremacist gathering could barely speak, much less march through the city.

The openly Islamophobic gathering was part of a June 10 national day of action organized by ACT For America, a hate group that uses fearmongering about the mythological spread of “Sharia law” in America as a way to foment hatred and violence against Muslim people.

As with every similar gathering in Texas since the election, from the March 4 Trump to May Day, the event attracted a range of fascists, neo-nazis and far-right nationalists that makes these events virtually indistinguishable from one another. Whatever the ostensible reason for gathering, whether it’s expressing loyalty to the president or opposing immigrants, these events essentially promote the same white supremacist agenda.

Hemp Is Rebuilding Agriculture In America’s Conservative Tobacco Country

Posted in Journalism, and Ministry of Hemp

Hemp is reviving agriculture where tobacco was once traditionally grown.

Tobacco is still a multi-million dollar industry, but its fortunes have fallen greatly due to changes in laws and growing social stigma around smoking and its effects on human health.

At the same time, the excellent climate in many tobacco-growing states make industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana, a near-perfect replacement.

What Is American Fascism And Who Are The Antifa?

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

You’ve seen them on TV: black clad activists marching against, and even openly fighting with neo-nazis, nationalists, and white supremacists. Since the election, antifascists have seemingly been everywhere online and in the media. Some call them terrorists, while others call them heroes, but really they’re just humans like you and me. Humans who hate fascism.

Who are the antifa, where did they come from aaaand what, really, is fascism anyway?

A question that’s no longer simply academic: across the U.S., and indeed, in Europe too, far right forces are growing in power. Whether they call themselves “nationalists” or claim to be opposed to “radical” Islam while targeting innocent Muslims for threats and violence, the bad old days are coming back round again on insanity’s loop.

‘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.