Los Angeles Green Festival - Hemp

Los Angeles just hosted its 3rd annual Green Festival in October at the LA Mart in downtown Los Angeles. This eco-friendly convention showcased many different companies, movements, and ideas surrounding the green/environmental movement in America and around the world.

While there are a multitude of topics I could cover, I decided on hemp, a prominent figure in the convention showing up in many different forms, and providing a wide variety of environmental benefits.

With the multitude of ways hemp can benefit American society, it is still illegal to grow in the United States, due to the stigma of association to it’s THC filled counterpart. The irony of this is that the US Constitution was written on hemp paper and was widely used and farmed for most of America’s history.

Amy Goodman on Independent News

I recently attended the Los Angeles Green Festival, an event showcasing eco-friendly concepts from sustainable food to hemp clothing to electric cars.

As a blogger/journalist, the highlight of the event for me was a talk by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! about her new book, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope, a collection of  weekly column pieces co-authored with Denis Moynihan. As you may know from my Ladybud article on Pacifica Radio, I believe independent reporting is a must, and once again Goodman backed up my belief with eloquence.

Goodman began her lecture with a bang, explaining her honest belief that people who care about social issues like climate change, wealth disparity, and a broken prison system “are not a fringed minority, not even a silent majority. But a silenced majority.” According to Goodman, this silencing is coming from the corporate media, and control over media must taken back by the public.

Two Thousand and Thirteen or Nineteen Eighty-Four?

A few months ago I had the urge to once again read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I was shocked at the staunch parallels with today’s society that I found within. While my head was buried in my book, Edward Snowden began leaking the NSA files he gathered while working as a contractor. The timing was surreal. If you haven't read Nineteen Eighty-Four, or like me, you haven't read it in a long time, let me refresh your memory. You’ve likely heard the concept of Big Brother, the watchful eye of an oppressive government, but that is just a portion of this amazing novel by the author of Animal Farm.

George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949 and used Stalin controlled Soviet Russia and wartime London as inspiration for a dysfunctional future setting. While his main objective may have been to discredit Communism through metaphor, the similarities to U.S. modern society are still striking.

The book begins with protagonist Winston Smith returning home from work. He describes his stark surroundings and mundane routine. In a state of constant war, all material items are rationed and simple things like coffee and chocolate are luxuries of the past. Buildings with “their sides shored up with balks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron” line the streets of London. The description of London reminds me of the terrible photos of bankrupt Detroit, decrepit and run down.

The Harrowing Thanksgiving

This time of year, I am usually thrilled to see trees change colour and enjoy the fresh chill in the air, knowing that winter is coming. Unfortunately, fall also brings a depressing period with it, Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a very tough holiday for me and many vegans. Not only is it sad that we (Americans) celebrate stealing the Native Americans' land and consequential genocide under the guise of friendship and togetherness, millions of turkeys are killed under the banner of "Tradition." While I often hear the argument that this is a time of year to celebrate the family, I am not swayed in my distaste for this terrible holiday.

It is always difficult for me to continuously turn down invitations to family events and feasts, as this is the one time I refuse to back down, to the irk of my husband. While the tradition is meant to encourage love and togetherness, I find it seriously lacks compassion.

REVIEW: Blackfish – An Inside Look At Killer Whales In Captivity At SeaWorld

When I was a kid I loved SeaWorld. Watching animal shows and hoping to get splashed was the best part, of course. The trainers would talk about the orca as if they loved to do these shows, that this behavior was normal for them in the wild. So, when I went into this film, the child in me was devastated to find out that this amazing show was a farce.

Blackfish is a documentary that takes a hard look into the reality of orca’s (a.k.a. Killer Whales) lives in captivity. The film begins with a rough looking fisherman almost breaking down in tears talking about the capture expedition he went on in 1983. In this expedition, they captured a baby orca, named Tilikum, off the coast of Iceland.

Pacifica Radio, A Truly Progressive Voice of Dissent

Everyone loves a good NPR piece. For a long time, it was my go-to radio station. Recently, however, I’ve found a new love in Pacifica Radio. What is amazing about Pacifica is, well, everything. 

In an age of government spying, covert wars, and a crackdown on civil liberties, it is increasingly important to have a full understanding of vital issues and events within the United States and around the world. Pacifica is fiercely independent radio that is not afraid to confront tough issues and guide listeners through in-depth topics which most news organizations skim over. 

But what is Pacifica? What makes it different?

Million Mask March

On November 5th, the hacktivist group Anonymous called for an international day of action to protest, well whatever you want. Thousands, if not a million people around the world marched, protested and spread their messages of equality, freedom, and honesty. Here in Los Angeles, we marched for a variety of reasons, while the most vocal of the group being to end the Federal Reserve.

REVIEW: Unmanned: America's Drone Wars

Drone Home - Illustration by John Gomes

How many stories have you heard about drone warfare? And I don't mean stories on the news or government counts of successful strikes, but stories from victims?

Unmanned: America's Drone Wars takes a hard look at drone warfare through the eyes of its victims, a compelling one hour film which gives faces to the families affected by US drones. Director Robert Greenwald shows interviews from family members and predominate figures within Pakistan, who explain what drone strikes have done to their communities.

The film begins with a US veteran describing how modern drone technology can read the licence plate on a car. He explains how when he was recruited to the army, to help pay off his college debt, the recruiter told him he would be just like Q in a James Bond film. He was told, "we kill people and break things." Some of these operators don't even need to leave US soil when controlling drones because the army has a large facility in Nevada where soldiers can kill people across the globe.

How the GOP Created Obamacare

With the next stages of the Affordable Healthcare Act being implemented and the recent GOP caused government shutdown, once again Republicans are fighting to repeal their much despised Obamacare. What is amazing about the Republican push against Obamacare is that in the 1990s, they were calling for the very system we are currently implementing.

In the 1990s, Hillary Clinton introduced a healthcare plan that sent Republican’s into a frenzy, the Health Security Act of 1993. They attacked Clinton’s proposal, claiming that their system would be better served for all Americans. But, the fight wasn’t against universal health care but how best to implement it.

Who Was Che Guevara?

Published on the 46th Anniversary of his death.

To heal life or to take life. 

What took a doctor and turned him into a revolutionary, a famous icon, and a so-called murderer? Who was this legend and why is he everywhere?

Ernesto Guevara was born in Argentina, June 14, 1928. By the age of three he had developed asthma that would haunt him for his entire life. For much of his early childhood, he was home schooled because of his asthma and spent many days in bed just trying to breathe. Ironically, he was spared from serving in the Argentinian military due to this severe health condition.

More Revelations From Edward Snowden

PHOTO: Mad Magazine

Almost four months ago, I wrote an article explaining why it was important to understand who Edward Snowden was and what he had done. At the time, I thought his exposure of NSA secrets would fade in the minds of the general public, much like Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, has seemed to do.

While Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian continue to expose more and more astounding disregard for the 1st and 4th Amendment, I thought it was only right to expand on my earlier article and include the new revelations that have since been revealed.

When Snowden’s name first popped up in the news, there was much speculation about whether what he was saying was true, and if so, if it was deemed acceptable by the American public or a gross violation of our basic rights as Americans.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning Found Innocent Of Aiding The Enemy, Guilty Of 19 Other Counts

After an eight-week trial, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning has been found guilty of 19 out of 22 criminal counts, including five counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, five counts of theft, one count computer fraud and some other military infractions, but was acquitted of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy. If given the maximum sentence he could spend 136 years in prison.

Manning was responsible for hundreds of thousands of documents leaked to the news organization WikiLeaks, including the well-known “Collateral Murder” video, where a US helicopter shot down one Reuter’s journalist and two camera men, along with hitting a van who stopped to aid the wounded, injuring two children and killing the father. Eleven people were killed in total.

Edward Snowden: Why You Should Know His Name

Sunday, June 9th the Guardian posted yet another article on the ongoing exposure of the overwhelming National Security Administration’s (NSA) PRISM program. This time it was not just a piece about the NSA, but about the whistleblower behind the leak, Edward Snowden.

[Originally published in Ladybud Magazine here: Edward Snowden: Why You Should Know His Name]

Snowden is a 29-year-old infrastructure analyst who, until recently, worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a contracting company providing the NSA with intelligence. He was exposed to a multitude of information that allowed him to piece together what the NSA was doing in regards to the surveillance of the American people, claiming he could wiretap even the President with access to a personal email address, and with his accumulating knowledge began to feel uncomfortable with what he concluded to be the NSA’s abuse of power.