Vegetarianism :: Healthy Lifestyle Essay

by Jello Biafra From I Blow Minds for a Living, recorded at Slim's, San Francisco, Nov 21, 1990 Does anybody out there know that for the first time in American history the U.S. Army was used in a war operation against the American people? Right near here, up in Humboldt County about 200 miles north of San Francisco right near a town called Shelter Cove, get this: three- to four-hundred American G.I.s dressed with automatic rifles and fully armed for battle, fanned out on maneuvers through the woods, backed up by a dozen Blackhawk attack helicopters. The mountain people up there were frightened out of their wits! They thought there was a war going on, especially the ones that had soldiers kicking in the doors to their cabins and putting guns to their heads in front of their children. Why!? Who was the enemy in this war? Not the communists! Not Saddam Hussein! Not Earth First! or even the spotted owl. No! The enemy they called out the army to put down, secretly, so few people outside of Humboldt would get alarmed as possible, it wasn't even a person or an army or a terrorist group! It was a plant, the marijuana plant. And they actually did manage to find a few for the G.I.s to pull up, and then they had to fly in more from the government stash so the pile would look big enough when they lit the bonfire for the network TV news cameras, so that they could say "Yes! Another triumph in the Drug War!" Drug War. War. The American army sent to war against the American people. And we're supposed to feel relieved and secure and protected. Protected from what?! A lot of people with more guts than I'll ever have risked their life and limb all last summer at the Earth First! Redwood Summer Action up in Humboldt County. They were chaining themselves to redwoods that were three times wider than they were, 800 years old, they were spread-eagled, as the saws buzzed right over their heads. They stood in the dirt as the bulldozers charged them and stopped right at their toes. Or people waved clubs at them, charged them with logging trucks, shotguns, you name it. All to try to save some of the last unspoiled virgin forest we have left anywhere in this country from being chopped down and turned into toilet paper, TV Guides and the Weekly World News. Vegetarianism :: Healthy Lifestyle Essay by Jello Biafra From I Blow Minds for a Living, recorded at Slim's, San Francisco, Nov 21, 1990 Does anybody out there know that for the first time in American history the U.S. Army was used in a war operation against the American people? Right near here, up in Humboldt County about 200 miles north of San Francisco right near a town called Shelter Cove, get this: three- to four-hundred American G.I.s dressed with automatic rifles and fully armed for battle, fanned out on maneuvers through the woods, backed up by a dozen Blackhawk attack helicopters. The mountain people up there were frightened out of their wits! They thought there was a war going on, especially the ones that had soldiers kicking in the doors to their cabins and putting guns to their heads in front of their children. Why!? Who was the enemy in this war? Not the communists! Not Saddam Hussein! Not Earth First! or even the spotted owl. No! The enemy they called out the army to put down, secretly, so few people outside of Humboldt would get alarmed as possible, it wasn't even a person or an army or a terrorist group! It was a plant, the marijuana plant. And they actually did manage to find a few for the G.I.s to pull up, and then they had to fly in more from the government stash so the pile would look big enough when they lit the bonfire for the network TV news cameras, so that they could say "Yes! Another triumph in the Drug War!" Drug War. War. The American army sent to war against the American people. And we're supposed to feel relieved and secure and protected. Protected from what?! A lot of people with more guts than I'll ever have risked their life and limb all last summer at the Earth First! Redwood Summer Action up in Humboldt County. They were chaining themselves to redwoods that were three times wider than they were, 800 years old, they were spread-eagled, as the saws buzzed right over their heads. They stood in the dirt as the bulldozers charged them and stopped right at their toes. Or people waved clubs at them, charged them with logging trucks, shotguns, you name it. All to try to save some of the last unspoiled virgin forest we have left anywhere in this country from being chopped down and turned into toilet paper, TV Guides and the Weekly World News.