Big Joint

BIG JOINT goes to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian MardiGra 2010:

By car, by bus, by train, by truck and on foot, the team assembled with random precision in the A.C.O.N (Aids Council of NSW) basement at 2.30 o'clock. At about 2.31, the Big Joint Inflation device blew up in such a way that it ceased to blow up. Unbelievable. It was working fine when we left Nimbin. There we were, with only 1 %of the BJ inflated and it was suddenly looking like we had all come a long way for nothing. I cannot speak highly enough of Peter Smith, he had organized everything with outstanding attention to details and when a problem arose, (like this one,) he solved it with alacrity.

Gary the butcher and Pete zoomed off in Garys Ute looking for a replacement leaf blower, by all accounts it was a mad dash from the centre of Sydney stopping at every hard ware store. They got to Ashfield before they found one and they only made it back just as the 4 O’Clock LOCK DOWN locked down. We then inflated the other 99% with out a problem and were all good to go by 6.00 PM at which time, we moved the BJ up to the marshalling area into our spot…. Directly behind about 150 gay police men and women! Yep, the AFP all marching hand in hand behind a bright red police car with flashing lights, which was right behind a music truck with a gay policeman mixing up the music and a contingent of NSW gay police as well.

7.55. As the sun went down the wind sprang up, gusting to 15 knots and there was real concern amongst the parade officials as to the safety of our float. The Obama banner with its bamboo frame was judged too dangerous unless we cut ‘wind slits’ into it, which we were not prepared to do and so, Obama was out. The parade officials then became concerned that the BJ could ‘get loose’ and hurt some. You can imagine the scene dear reader, the parade is less than 5 mins away from starting and the wind was getting windier. I said to the dude, tell your boss that the combined weight of the people carrying the joint exceeds the weight of the BJ by a significant factor, well over 20 to 1, it can’t get away from us, we’ve got hold of it with ropes. After a few minutes the word came down from ‘upon high’ that we could participate if we added more ropes, which we did.

The BJ was the 27th in the procession; there were at least 100 more floats behind us, which meant the crowd was still relatively fresh and impressionable when we walked by, they had yet to reach a point of super sequin saturation and still had plenty of lung power left for cheering and since a lot of those lungs was connected to plastic whistles, it resulted in the loudest concentration of sound I have ever been in. That crowd definitely loved the BJ and more to the point, the vast majority of them signaled that wanted the law to be changed, by waving and yelling out LET IT GROW and similar slogans, leaving me in no doubt that including the Big Joint in the G&L parade was a superb public relations exercise for the HEMP movement. Well done everyone, well done.

LAST TIME WE TOOK THE BIG JOINT TO SYDNEY
SEPTEMBER 2009

For those who have come in late; Part 1. The Polite Force is becoming one of the most successful propaganda weapons we have ever assembled, how successful? Highly! If you can remember and if you were there, no matter where you went during MardiGrass 09, any time day or night, everywhere you cared to look you could see a POLITE hat or a member of the POLITE FORCE staging a succession of what where in essence, and by design, Avante-garde Tableau Vivants: Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard", the adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics. Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move. The approach thus marries the art forms of the stage with those of painting / photography. Each tableux capturing the POLICE - POLITE message, thousands and thousands of photographs of the POLITE FORCE have now become part of the public domain, the concept is out there and thriving on facebook and youtube, indeed the POLITE Cannabis Activists from Nimbin have already become a global phenomena and part of cannabis law reform legend.

^^LAST TIME WE WENT TO PARLIAMENT HOUSE^^

For those who have come in late; Part 2. The plan is point out the POTential revenue that would be raised by the HEMP revolution, please keep uppermost in mind we are not talking about a government tax on home grown cannabis for personal use, we are talking about the revenue that will be generated by the hemp Agri business - Fibre, Fuel and Food. Hemp is stronger and requires far less fertilizer than, say, cotton; being naturally insect repellent, and having few insect predators capable of effectively attacking it, it needs little to no pe$ticide$. As food, hemp seed is right up there with the Soya bean for nutrition and a lot more versatile. Since Hemp seed is the only food source that has the vital Omega Acids 3, 6 and 9 it can help reduce humanities reliance on fish, currently the main source of omega acid. I should also add that cannabis has a growing reputation amongst cancer patients as a wonder drug and it's 'miracle cure' reputation for breast and prostate cancer has been scientifically verified since the last time we took the BigJoint to Canberra. Another example? How about old growth Tasmanian forest being sold as wood chips for a couple of dollars a tonne. Irreplaceable forest for a measly $2 per tonne. If the government were to legislate a redeployment of the 'woodchip' industry into the 'hemp industry, within a few years the HEMPchip industry will be churning out high quality pulp and what's left of the old growth could stay alive until someone wants to pay its real value; $200,000,000 a tonne. Since a hemp seed is 35% oil, containing the highest oil percentage of all seeds, hempseed is ideal for bio diesel and when the sustainability of a bio diesel industry is compared to the unstable future of the oil business, case closed, I mean the price of oil has never come down in my lifetime, hemp based fuel could save Australia billions and billions of dollars. Still yet another example? Hemp is being used in the Ukraine around Chernobyl to absorb radioactive isotopes from the soil. That's just some of the reasons. Stimulate the Economy, cure cancer, save the trees and fish, reduce our dependency on oil and clean up nuclear waste........... I am not making this up, cross check all this info on Google.

Bottom Line? We do not want cannabis legalized just so we can sit around and smoke pot all day long, we have common sense reasons why 'out door' cannabis should be relegalized so that all Australians can benefit from this wonderful plant, indeed, from a global perspective, no other country on earth stands to gain as much as Australia does by relegalizing the hemp plant in this time of Global Economic Turmoil. We have the acreage, the sunlight and the willing workers required to become the earths leading supplier of hemp for Fibre, Fuel, Food and Medicine.

till next update....

peace.

Max Stone

webdesign by rebelart ;O)--~