Welcome loyal readers and fans of reality worldwide! Spring is in the air and never was it truer that intelligent people will want to live in the sun. The best weather in America is right here in San Diego County. In fact, the little bit of unincorporated area in the mountains where I live is really the last land grab in the county, as most of the area is Indian Reservations or BLM land. The smallest acreage subdivisions are now at 10 acres.

One of the things I pride myself as a martial arts teacher is reality training. For martial arts to be a way of life at the highest level, one needs to learn how to swim. You would be surprised at how many folks never learn this basic survival skill. In addition, the truisms in the famed Urantia Book give us tips to base our principles on. For instance, it is unhealthy to live in a city of over a million people! Secondly, it is unhealthy to have more than one family per acre! Few consider these things, mostly because they are trapped where they are, live in the realm of insanity or are working to get out.

True martial arts survival training has to incorporate working the soil, getting the hands in the dirt, working with tools and experiencing making a living with the arts solely. The successful at this always use word of mouth and heart to heart. The times we are in reflect 1774 to 1777 as well as 1964 to 1967. The keyword is progress. We have made progress in our own countries’ martial history. We have never lost a war. We won WW2 with the big bomb. Right afterwards we decided to never use it except for “police” wars. In other words, we entered a new world where commerce was going to trump sophistry. The communist Chinese never helped us in any measurable way during both world wars. They were fence straddlers with an agenda forged from sitting on the sidelines while the allied powers took care of things. Indeed they were behind Vietnam, even though they begged us for help first against the Japanese in Nanking, and later when their Republican regime of gangster warlords in disguise were beat by Mao’s masses of farmers. It is easy to see how the warlords were sent packing and have now infiltrated around the globe in some cases under the guise of “martial art leaders.”

I was bused to a school in Chinatown as a kid due to desegregation and enforced busing. What a trip it was watching this happen after our father’s won WW2. We as kids had no clue what our city, state or country would become. I grew up in California when gas was 18 cents a gallon and bread 14 cents. An ounce of gold was under $35 and a new muscle car was $1500. You could buy a home for $7500. We were 90% white in California and were listening to Doo Wop.

Many of us fell in to the worship of wealth, materialistic thing and our values were distorted. We saw the population increase and amalgamation of the races. Values played out among activists and a slow hub of sane government doing its best to quell the whiners and snivelers.

Enter 2009, and President Obama is in office now over 50 days. I went to vote before the election for Mc Cain, but at the last moment, I chose Obama. I wanted to see someone open to rescedualizing marijuana, protecting those already in States where medical marijuana is legal, and accepting that hemp can get our commerce back on track.

This week (March 2009) I watched O’Reily attempt to discuss the issue with John Stossel. As usual, O’Reily is in denial and clueless on the issue. Whenever he gets a woman from ASA (Americans for Safe Access) or a mild manned reporter with brains on the issue, he resorts to throwing a tantrum. It is this type of hypocrisy the people are seeing through, only this time we are more amalgamated and realize democracy requires participation to grow and progress.

The issue number 1 is the economy; and taxing and regulating marijuana like tobacco and alcohol is the answer. To the stiff’s that delusionally hold themselves as being more than spiritually equal in God’s eyes because of a judgmental moral stance on something that is a self gratification and healing issue, not a moral issue, is light years from the religion of the “I am.”. Americans’ like their separation of church and state, as well as states’ rights. They fear losing their guns if it were to be any other way, thus…they will help us on this issue no matter their religious beliefs or not get votes from their peers on issues that they deem all so important. It is called cooperation over competition. I remember Romney saying that he believed it had no medical value. My question to him is then; why do I get synthetic THC for severe osteoarthritis, approved by the DEA (Federal Government,) paid for by Medicare and at a cost of $1,400.00 or so a month? Even the religious right forgets that it is the most scientifically studied plant (over 20,000 studies,) in the world If we would implement the descedualization first, it would allow doctors to prescribe THC pills and allow folks to grow in states where it is legal. As of now about 25% of the states have either medical marijuana laws or are lenient more so than a decade ago. Money talks: without a 10% flat tax, agricultural privatized penal colonies in the desert and America becoming the first country in the modern world to tax and regulate marijuana as alcohol and tobacco in modern times, the American people will get disgusted and change things the old school way, at the voting machine. The only way a Republican can win anything in the future will to address this issue as #1, for not only medical and self-gratification, but for pure commerce, that makes sense. Ron Paul spoke well on the issue that aired on Larry King.

This issue is very important in the martial arts community as well. We forget that martial ancestors were not denied marijuana, nor were our Wild West martial cowboys. Indeed, it is as American as apple pie and ice cream on July 4. Anyone that says otherwise needs to be asked, “Were they lying then or are they lying now.” We the people will decide this…not if, but sooner than we all think.

This is just a tip of the iceberg article on what will be the future no matter what. The key at this point is to start discussing it in a civil, respectful and scientifically intelligent manner.

God Bless America – There is nothing new under the sun so show me the money to get food, clothing and medical care to the poorest of our planet’s inhabitants. This will stop the main cause of war (food) and stop the main cause of death: “boredom.”

Sincerely,

Grandmaster James Patrick Lacy
18 Daoist Palms
Inside Kung Fu Hall of Fame ‘89