“Progressives are challenged by the new Jim Crow,” opened
Bryan W. Brickner, part of Publius, the pen name used for The Cannabis Papers:
A citizen’s guide to cannabinoids (2011), “Obama included.”
On Thursday,
President Obama commuted the draconian sentences of eight citizens in prison
for non-violent drug crimes: six of the sentences were for life.
In a commutation
statement, President Obama noted: “Commuting the sentences of these eight
Americans is an important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice
and fairness.” He also said the extreme sentences where the product of an “unfair
system.”
“This ‘unfair system’ Obama references,” Brickner added, “is
Nixon’s 1970 Controlled Substances Act and its impact on citizenship.
Sentencing reform doesn’t deal with our political reality: if this generation
can’t clean up the drug war, we’re just leaving a mess for the next one.”
Michelle Alexander’s 2009 book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, is highlighted in The Cannabis
Papers; chapter 31, “Drugism/Racism,” focuses on Nixon’s drug war and the
creation of a class of citizens – the felon – who face discrimination by our
new Jim Crow.
“Once you’re labeled a felon,” Alexander wrote in 2009, “the
old forms of discrimination – employment discrimination, housing
discrimination, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion
from jury service – are suddenly legal.”
“Obama’s presidency is still before him,” offered Brickner.
“The freeing of eight from an unfair system is a great step forward for eight –
yet freeing a nation from Jim Crow could be Obama’s greatest step … and his legacy.”
Brickner has a 1997 political
science doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of several political
theory books, to include The Promise Keepers (1999), Article the first of the
Bill of Rights (2006), and The Book of the Is: A book on bridges (2013).
The Cannabis Papers is available at online retailers and for
free by download.
Homeostatic cannabinoid processes are this year’s champions in a Publius 2014 science celebration. In four brief science tales from the National Institutes of Health PubMed, bivalency (it doubles) and heteronomy (not autonomous) are highlighted f ...
Released On: 12/31/2014
Views: 6695
Working the serotonin dependent digestive system is the modulation focus in this Publius gut update. In three (brief) science tales based on new research from the National Institutes of Health (PubMed), one reads of new serotonin (5-HT, 5-hydroxy ...
Released On: 12/27/2014
Views: 7024
Celebrating the human spirit this Christmas Day, author Bryan W. Brickner honors our heritage via a soldier’s day in a long war. Leo Barron and Don Cygan’s book No Silent Night: The Christmas Battle for Bastogne (2012) is used to show how former ...
Released On: 12/25/2014
Views: 8862
Celebrating the human spirit this Christmas Eve, author Bryan W. Brickner honors our heritage via the 1818 song Silent Night and the 2012 book No Silent Night: The Christmas Battle for Bastogne. Blanketed by time and war, Brickner notes one man’s ...
Released On: 12/24/2014
Views: 5129
Bryan W. Brickner utilizes John Bunyan’s English Christian classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), to highlight a US Supreme Court absent the Protestant Reformation. In this year’s Thanksgiving Day essay on the Bryan William Brickner Blog, one fi ...
Released On: 11/27/2014
Views: 13338
Veterans Day on the Bryan William Brickner Blog highlights Robert E. Lee’s nemesis, the Gallant Fourteenth, an Indiana Civil War regiment. Political theorist Bryan W. Brickner notes several battlefield occurrences where fortune swings back and fo ...
Released On: 11/11/2014
Views: 11207
American dissent is honored via a review of Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, the 2013 HBO movie on Ali’s religious freedom case, Clay v United States. Ew Publishing’s William Abens notes the Supreme Court technical victory Ali achieved – while also ...
Released On: 11/10/2014
Views: 6551
Publius’ Veterans Day cannabinoid science PTSD edition notes four 2014 PubMed articles on cannabinoids modulating re-homeostasis, our ability to heal. The post also highlights and honors US veteran Keith Marker and the PTSD relief he found via ca ...
Released On: 11/9/2014
Views: 12111
Belief in oneself is the conjured ideal presented in a Halloween dialogue between authors Bryan W. Brickner and Stephen Young. This year’s dreamscape has Robert E. Lee standing with Revolutionary War rebel John F. Pettigrew, with Lee holding a (p ...
Released On: 10/31/2014
Views: 8896
Biology and botany clash in today’s cannabinoid research from the National Institutes of Health (PubMed). Publius of The Cannabis Papers looks at five 2014 articles on the cannabinoid system modulating homeostasis and sleep, with a special focus ...
Released On: 9/30/2014
Views: 7997
Equinox and Homeostasis are mid-point extremes that modulate our lives much like the serotonin (5-HT, 5-hydroxytryptamine) in our brains. In five (brief) science stories based on new research from the National Institutes of Health (PubMed), autho ...
Released On: 9/21/2014
Views: 13015
The US Constitution, Yankee Doodle Dandies, and the Spirit of ’76 are honored from Antietam and Sharpsburg Maryland this Constitution Day 2014. In the finale to the summer War Cry Heal Union series, author Bryan W. Brickner utilizes the lives of ...
Released On: 9/17/2014
Views: 21328
Yankee Doodle Dandy and the Spirit of ’76 are showcased in the ninth posting of the summer War Cry Heal Union series from Ew Publishing. Author Bryan W. Brickner places Civil War Private Augustus (Gus) Kotka and Johnny Reb in a “spirited” dialogu ...
Released On: 9/16/2014
Views: 6357
Homeostatic cannabinoid science is the focus found in new research articles from the National Institutes of Health (PubMed), with a spotlight on ultralow doses of THC protecting the brain from inflammation-induced cognitive deficits. Publius, of ...
Released On: 9/6/2014
Views: 14757
Homeostatic cannabinoid science is the focus found in new research articles from the National Institutes of Health (PubMed), including one on the de-homeostatic (harmful) effects of chronic alcohol use to one’s cannabinoid system. Publius of The ...
Released On: 8/31/2014
Views: 9565
An 18th century wonder, America’s First Amendment, is honored in a posting for the summer War Cry Heal Union series from Ew Publishing. Author Bryan W. Brickner highlights Western Civilization’s free speech tradition by contrasting it with two ...
Released On: 8/26/2014
Views: 5386
The nuances of citizenship in the (new) US Republic are detailed in posting 7.5 of the summer War Cry Heal Union series from Ew Publishing. Author Bryan W. Brickner notes the ins and outs of George Washington’s ideas on citizenship through his wo ...
Released On: 8/18/2014
Views: 6275
Civil wars and constitutional representation are talked of in the seventh posting of the summer War Cry Heal Union series from Ew Publishing. Author Bryan W. Brickner honors the 150th anniversary of Private Augustus Kotka’s last day on earth ~ by ...
Released On: 8/11/2014
Views: 15874