I had some additional thoughts about Michael Coren's Sun TV interview with my wife Jodie and his subsequent Toronto Sun newspaper rant (both are attached to the beginning of my last blog) about me and the cannabis culture.

One of the favoured media propaganda techniques is the long ranting monologue preceding the interview of the guest (Jodie in this case) with opposing ideas. This rant (perfected by Bill O'Reilly at Fox News and emulated in this case by Sun TV host Michael Coren) is always full of idiotic lies. What do you say to someone who is arguing the world is flat? Well, you don't get to say anything because the guest isn't present during the taping of the rant, and doesn't know it will show up in the broadcast. And even if Jodie were aware of the rant, how can you rebut a dozen lies in nine seconds?

As for the tacked on interview with Jodie, it's a matter of the host skipping from subject to subject whenever one subject gets too hot. When Jodie brought up prohibition's role in starting wars, justifying invasions and directing foreign policy, Coren tosses in a quick lie and zips off to another subject.

Coren says he can't see why marijuana prohibition is a big cause (despite it being big enough for two states to vote in the majority to repeal marijuana prohibition). Again, Jodie starts to tell him how prohibition affects nearly every aspect of society and zip… lie… zip… he's off to another subject.

What has Coren ever read about prohibition? There are dozens of books cogently explaining the hundreds of thousands of prohibition murders and deaths, the narco-states, the corruption of whole militaries and police, cartel slaughters, massive incarcerations; is it possible a modern day man with access to so much information could be so blithely unaware?

No issue is bigger than prohibition: wars, invasions, drug cartels, repressive narco-states, civil wars, gangster governments, corrupt law enforcement, over 60,000 dead in Mexico in six years, loss of privacy in a police state, seizures of homes and kids, denial of miracle medicine to those in pain and misery, orphaned children, millions of destroyed lives, demagoguing politicians, drug cartel money propping up the world from total economic collapse in 2009, and 75 years and counting and prison, prison, prison.

Could it be Coren and people like him are just propaganda robots who automatically reject anything coming from the reality-based community? Whenever the 'reality-based community' brings up a point, the reaction is to dismiss it with some moronic lie, and then …zip… to move on.

The camera, when left alone to do its work, doesn't lie. Jodie came across as a classy, intelligent person who dealt in facts. Coren comes across as a brainwashed ideologue grinning at his own stupidity, which he mistakes for intelligence. Coren, knowing full well how full of it he is, even predicts he will get loads of emails and twitter responses from the reality-based community calling him "evil". Coren doesn't see the relevance of his own remark. He laughs at it.

It is this disconnect between the evil done by prohibition and the inability of people like Coren to accept responsibility for what they are endorsing. This is sociopathic behaviour. Coren simply can't empathize with the suffering he is promoting. Prohibition is no more serious a concern than "the right to masturbate", he writes!  It is indeed true with prohibition, that if you aren't against prohibition, you are indeed for it – and therefore must accept the evil done by prohibitionist policy as your own. Prohibitionists are incapable of logical thought in this matter because logic would show they are supporting evil acts. Therefore, Coren avoids logic, and avoids any responsibility for who he is, and what he is.

Coren's mistaken assertion that police ignore possession busts is limited and incorrect. Incorrect because, as Jodie points out, possession busts continue to rise, over 10,000 in Canada last year. But limited, too, because the big prohibition money for police is in seizures. That's the main interest of police when it comes to prohibition. The police don't get homes and cars and yachts and motorcycles and computers and furniture and anything else they want by making possession busts. Would-be-uniformed thugs don't join police SWAT teams to make possession busts. They join to fuck shit up. To blast through front doors, to toss in stun grenades, carry heavy assault weaponry, wear intimidating black assault outfits, have slavering German Shepherds ready to attack anyone inside feigning resistance. Helicopters, tanks, all the SWAT team paraphernalia so beloved by adrenalized cops everywhere in North America – you don't get that making possession busts.

Seizures and the new asset forfeiture laws that allow them are the biggest part of the corruption. As in the United States, Canadian police are now addicted to marijuana prohibition because of forfeiture and seizure laws. Like the US, seizure laws have created a profitable industry for police in Canada. Some US police departments exist only because of seizures.

When drug-related asset forfeiture laws were first introduced in Canada, it was made clear none of the proceeds would go to police. This was done to avoid corruption. That quickly changed, and so did Canadian policing. Asset forfeitures are used to finance police asset forfeiture infrastructure. Busts are now equated with personal and institutional benefits that can be obtained no other way. Corruption is guaranteed. Police become armed robbers with a badge.

Coren asked Jodie if she was a 'pothead', a juvenile tactic that says a lot about Coren and his audience. Coren seemed to be in a constant state of self-absorbed glee through the entire interview. He was so charged up while saying the dumbest things and was just bursting to say the next dumb thing, and the next.

A classic remark by Coren had a certain historical resonance, his final last-stand defense for prohibition and all it represents. When the lies don't hold up (and they didn't), when the facts are starting to get in the way (and they did), it's time for the ultimate rationalization, the one that is history's most popular justification for evil: "Well, it's the law."

Then at the end, Coren wishes me the best for the holiday season. See, that's a disconnect. He can't see legalization as a worthy cause, he thinks I doth protest my five-year sentence for selling seeds from my desk in Vancouver too much (there are more worthy prisoners and causes, he says), he issues me a robotic Christmas greeting to show his humanity while expressly supporting the propaganda from a prohibitionist system that put me in a US federal prison in the first place! That's chutzpah for you!

The prohibition system has left over a million children without fathers in the US, and millions more in some level of despair over loved ones in prisons worldwide for prohibition. Coren and drug war apologists will nonetheless enjoy the holidays with their families. He does not see the evil, the contradiction. It does not enter Coren's mind. Simply by wishing me a Merry Christmas, Coren is able to reassure himself he is an okay guy. After all, prohibition can't be so bad as to ruin a Merry Christmas, can it, Mr. and Mrs. Emery? What's 2,600 kilometers separation, really, for five years, because of some seeds?! Merry Christmas, Marc and Jodie – come on, lighten up, says Mr. Coren; It's Christmas, for goodness sakes!

————————-

But I'll be out soon, maybe 12 months if I get transferred back to Canada, 18 months if I don't. The Prohibitionists, however, are forever locked inside a delusion they can never escape. Abandoning that delusion, they'll have to see themselves as they really are. And that's something they can't handle. Therefore, their lives will continue to be an exercise in worthlessness. But enough of Michael Coren at Christmastime.

Christmas brings a feeling love and hope for humanity. People warm up at Christmas. They are nicer to each other for a brief period of time. I know from letters and cards that I am thought of at Christmas by many, and it's a comforting feeling. All my work of over 30 years is coming to a big pay-off. Two US states have legalized, with many more (and hopefully British Columbia) on the horizon to legalize. Uruguay will legalize next year. The juggernaut is loose and cannot be turned back, though the prohibitionists will certainly try.

Let us hope for Happy Holidays, and in the New Year, begin the hard work anew on Legalization with Peace on Earth, and No More Drug War.

Merry Christmas,
From Marc Emery
#40252-086

Marc wrote this prison blog in response to an offensive, inaccurate attack column against Jodie, Marc and all marijuana legalization activists written by Michael Coren, a columnist and TV host for “Fox News North” Sun Media. Coren has had Jodie on his TV show three times, but the third appearance resulted in an online backlash against him, leading Coren to write this column.

Watch Jodie’s appearances on Coren’s Sun TV show; the third is the most recent one, which began the controversy (you can also watch the videos at the bottom of this page):

1) November 2011

2) February 2012

3) December 2012

My Response To Michael Coren
By Marc Emery

The two greatest cultures on Earth that have done most to enhance the lives of people of the planet in the last 100 or so years are the Jewish culture and the cannabis culture, two historically demonized and persecuted peoples.

The Jewish culture is remarkable in that such a small relative population currently numbering no more than 30 million people worldwide (a little more than half a percent of the current 7 billion population) has not only endured murderous pogroms* in Europe for 500 years (1450-1950), but in the last century Jewish individuals were recognized with 105 Nobel prizes for achievements in science, economics, chemistry, physics. Consider that Islamic culture, of which there are over one billion people on Earth, or 14 percent of the world's population, has won only 3 Nobel prizes in the same 110 years, and one of those went to Yasser Arafat.

(*Pogrom means an organized campaign by government to demonize and persecute an identified minority with a larger society. Originally a Russian word, it is now part of the English language. It is identified most closely with the persecution of Jews in Russia from 1820 to 1917.)

Jewish people have been prominent in all aspects of business, science (biology, disease control, vaccination, chemistry, physics, electricity, and many more sciences), aerospace, technology, industry, film, journalism, literature, theatre, and computers. The impact by Jewish people in human advancement is stunning by comparison with all other races, religions, or cultures – except one, the Cannabis Culture.

Although Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language, was a proven cannabis consumer, the staggering achievements of the cannabis culture are most noticed in the last 60 years, particularly in the fields of music, literature, film, theatre, science, art, technology, computers, architecture, astrophysics, and business.

The number of marijuana consumers on Earth currently number about 200 million, despite the arrest and incarceration of 30 million of the cannabis culture worldwide since 1961, when the first universal law of prohibition (The Single Convention Treaty on Narcotics) was signed into law by all member states of the United Nations. It is believed 60,000 people have been murdered or executed by the police and enforcers of prohibition worldwide for offenses that were exclusive cannabis related, since 1960.

In Canada, since 1967, over two million Canadians have been arrested for cannabis-related offenses of the law; over 300,000 of these individuals served time in jail. In the United States, since 1966, 26 million Americans have been arrested for cannabis related offenses, and over five million have spent time in jail after these arrests. In New York City today, 50,000 citizens are charged with marijuana offenses annually, and in Canada, over 10,000 are charged with marijuana possession offenses annually.

I myself am serving five years in a US federal prison for (ostensibly) selling cannabis seeds from my desk in Vancouver, despite never having left Canada while doing so, but the head of DEA said in the press release the day of my arrest that it was all about my political activity for legalization. In fact, our Freedom of Information Act request to get my file from DEA revealed that they had in fact tracked over $2 million dollars in my contributions to activist organizations and individuals operating in the United States, including ballot initiatives in Washington, DC (1998), Colorado (2000), Arizona (2000), Alaska (2000, 2002, 2004), class action lawsuits against the US government (1999), and over 200 other campaigns.

When I was arrested in 2004 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for passing one joint, and sentenced to three months in provincial prison (much to my surprise, as the police had seized no marijuana, having only a witness who said I passed a joint to a 22-year old person), I had my first incarcerated experience of the drug war and spent much time studying its pernicious underpinnings.

I read then a book I consider the greatest study undertaken to understand the drug war, and it greatly influenced me then, and still does to this day. I have never found a book more insightful as to the true nature of our enemies, the Prohibitionists, as I have in the book DRUG WARRIORS & THEIR PREY by Richard Lawrence Miller. There simply is no more important book about the drug war and why the cannabis culture, and by comparison in the book, the European Jewish culture, were both targeted for destruction and elimination by the dominant governments of the times, the cannabis culture by the American and Canadian governments from 1969 to the present, and the European Jewish culture by almost every central and eastern European government from 1900 to 1945.

It explains the four processes of culture annihilation that both The Marijuana People and The Jewish People faced (and face) in their respective culture.

These four processes, approved and codified in laws affecting every aspect of North American life today for the cannabis culture and every aspect of Jewish European life in the 1900 to 1945 period, are, in order:

1. Demonization
2. Ostracization
3. Segregation & Terrorization
4. Concentration

In the Demonization process, the government engages in propaganda to condemn the cannabis culture or Jewish culture as deviant, impure, corrupting to youth, foreign, unpatriotic, unhealthy. Conservatives in both the United States and Canada wage every campaign of the last 35 years as an attack of the cultural values of the 1960's. Stephen Harper has launched his pogrom against the cannabis culture in Canada by specifically identifying the culture of the 1960's, with its cannabis-inspired music, theatre, poetry, sexual freedom, anti-authority journalism, dissent, environmentalism, anti-war ethos.

(From Marc's prison blog from 2009, "Stephen Harper and the End Of Days (of Canada As We Know It)": Marijuana use represents everything Stephen Harper wants eliminated from acceptable Canadian society. Harper, when launching the National Anti-Drug Strategy on October 4, 2007, cited permissive values of the 1960's when launching his latter-day crusade against the infidels – click here to watch the video: "A simple war on drugs is not going to be successful," he said, "but neither is simply being soft on the question going to be successful. We are up against a culture that, since the 1960's, has had at the minimum not discouraged drug use and often romanticized it, or made it cool. My son is listening to my Beatles records and asking me what all these lyrics mean. I love these records. I'm not putting them away. But we have to change the culture.")

Governments in Europe in the 1930's and governments in the periods 1970-present in North America used the schools to encourage children to turn in marijuana people, propagandizing all students with absurd, unscientific hate spiels. Governments buy ads on television, radio, newspapers, entirely with the cowed compliance of all media in both countries, to assert fictions designed to separate the cannabis culture from being regarded as first class citizens. Jews and the cannabis culture are asserted to be different from 'regular' citizens, not entitled to the constitutional protections that other citizens receive. Jewish culture and cannabis culture are in fact, peaceful and honest lifestyles harming no one, so the government needs to put a wedge between the dominant culture and those targeted for persecution. 

After the propaganda campaign comes the changes in laws that affect every aspect of life: the ostracization by law. Jews and the cannabis culture that do not hide their cultural affiliation cannot be teachers. They cannot be judges. They cannot be policemen. They cannot hold elected office. They cannot be bonded. They cannot get security clearance for sensitive government jobs. They can have their children taken from them for 're-education'. They cannot travel to neighboring countries. They get urine and blood tested before being considered for most jobs in industry or the federal government (European Jews were not required to submit to this), and if they are verified as part of the Jewish or cannabis culture, they are eliminated from consideration for employment. They can be refused public assistance in the form of welfare, food stamps, public housing, student loans, student grants, admission to universities and colleges.

In North America, neighbors, utility inspectors, fire inspectors, municipal zoning officers, postal delivery people, are all organized to inform to the authorities if anyone in the cannabis culture house is suspected of having cannabis plants in the home. The parents must advise the children never to discuss the use of cannabis or the existence of plants/Jewish rituals in the home with anyone else, or the state and its agents will seize the children, seize the home, and/or arrest the parents. The police are empowered to destroy or seize the home and the contents of the home. Notices can be posted outside the home on the front lawn, by police, that say, "drug house"/"Jews" and all neighbors encouraged to ostracize the cannabis culture/Jews living therein. Landlords are informed and certainly urged by authorities to evict the cannabis culture/Jewish family immediately. The media are advised, and the cannabis culture/Jews will have the police visit publicized. Employers will be encouraged by this media exposure to fire the cannabis culture person/Jews from their employ, lest the business be tainted by bad relations with the state and propagandized population.

The necessary corollaries for the propaganda and demonization campaign are severe laws punishing the practices of the cannabis culture through Prohibition. All aspects of the cannabis culture are prohibited, whether banning the implements of use of cannabis, or material to cultivate cannabis, or any aspect of its distribution. These prohibition laws manufacture millions of 'criminals' overnight; the laws of the state virtually manufacture crime where previously there was none – manufacturing criminals where previously there were none. 'Crime' organizations instantly exist to re-create the previously unhindered legal use and distribution. This has the necessary effect of creating violence within the cannabis culture, as what was previously of almost no financial value becomes an extraordinarily lucrative commodity. Demand remains constant while production is now entirely moved underground, the scope so vast as to permit the state to relentlessly increase the size and scope of its police repression with unquestioned and virtually unlimited annual increases in taxpayer revenues.

Once the full effect of laws are applied at the municipal level through safety inspections, utility inspections, at the state/provincial level through employment tests (urine, blood, social media, government contracts), Child Protection Agency inspections, and road-stop inspections, at the federal levels through pervasive legislation, government mandated blood and urine tests, then the state unleashes its full fury through militarized and violent assaults on the cannabis culture/Jewish culture. At this point, SWAT teams, fully militarized armed and masked agents of the state, routinely (meaning daily) smash into peaceful dwellings, immediately killing pet animals and threatening to kill everyone inside if they do not immediately submit to being laid on the ground, roughed up, handcuffed and led outside.

The modus operandi of the current terrorization of the cannabis culture by state agencies in Canada and the US is virtually identical to the European persecution of Jews. Police have full reign to wiretap, surveil, use any level of force, destroy as much property with impunity, have the residents evicted, seize the property by outright forfeiture, the children sent to re-education centers away from the custodial care of the parents. Then in order to re-occupy the home, the residents must submit to extortion by municipal electrical, safety, and housing inspectors, costing upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to meet compliance with rules specifically passed into law to harass and humiliate the cannabis culture family.

The popular media is then enjoined unquestioningly to trumpet the heroic efforts of the police who seek out and rid the community of "vermin" Jews/cannabis culture. The media never question the premise of this daily police violence; the federal government regulates television networks, and the private newspapers, always desperate for revenue, rely on a constant infusion of government advertising revenue.

Once the terrorization has been underway, the cannabis culture/Jews are arrested and placed in prisons, for increasingly longer sentences, under continually deteriorating or inhumane conditions of over-crowding, substandard food, violence by guards and other 'criminals'. It happens with such daily frequency the 'regular' civilian population pays virtually no attention. Police have absolute power, government ministers are immune from any consequences of their systemic cultural destruction, and the cycle is now well on its way to the conclusion of the deliberate campaign by government, the elimination of the cannabis culture/Jewish culture entirely.

For what is the ultimate intended effect of the marijuana prohibition by the US and Canadian federal government? It can only be the total and utter destruction of the cannabis culture through demonization, ostracization, terror, and finally elimination. What was the ultimate goal of the many central and eastern governments in Europe in regards to the existence of Jewish culture? There are few or no Jews in Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Hungary, and Greece, where there were over six million before 1935.

The question before the North American cannabis culture for the last 45 years has always been "how far will you let the governments of Canada and the United States go before the 4-stage cycle of cultural annihilation is complete?"

The Jews of Europe and the Cannabis Culture of North America asked the same question during their brutal ordeals of arrest, imprisonment and worse: "Why do they hate us so?"

There is only one answer, and the answer is: The State likes the cruelty, the grotesque exploitation of power, and the immoral lust for dominance. Why else be a cop? Why else be a judge? Why else be a politician? Why else to use unlimited and unearned power over the lives of others to dispose of their peaceful and honest lives at whim?

"But why us? We have so much to offer!" cried the Jews and the cannabis culture. And the state replies, as they have not ever one rational basis for this mass abuse of the Jewish people and cannabis culture, "You must suffer precisely because you are so good and have given so much, and we are so unworthy of what you have contributed to our lives and so we spite you to put you in your place, you are and always will be subservient to us, if we even let you live!"

**********************

As an activist for the end of the prohibition of cannabis and the end to the pogrom by the governments of Canada and the United States toward the cannabis culture, I was arrested 28 times from 1996 to 2010, all for cannabis-related offenses.

I was arrested when a police SWAT team of the Victoria, British Columbia police raided my home with my then-partner and her child at 4:00am one early morning in January 2003, ostensibly looking for plants. There were no plants, and the police grounds for a warrant were completely fraudulent and invented. I was arrested six times and jailed on my Summer of Legalization Tour in 2003 when I was legally (according to Canadian law at the time) smoking a bong in front of the Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Regina, St. John's and Moncton police depts. (Charges were all dropped, as I was right that the law didn’t exist then.) I was arrested when police SWAT teams raided the offices of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and my HEMP BC store, in January 1996, December 1997, April 1998, and September 1998. I was arrested and jailed for 68 days for passing one joint in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan after speaking at the university of Saskatchewan in March 2004. I was arrested and cuffed by the highway for having four grams in my possession in July 2003. I was arrested on July 29, 2005 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the behest of the US DEA and with the complete collaboration of the Canadian federal government, and sentenced to five years in a plea deal instead of getting thirty years to life and dying behind bars.

So I know about the abuse of power at the pernicious whim of authorities.

Every Justice Minister/Attorney-General of Canada since Pierre Elliot Trudeau was Justice Minister in 1967 is a party to this pogrom so severe as to be unforgivable and its immorality inerasable from the historical record. The same is true for Attorneys-General of the United States. The Presidents and Prime Ministers of both countries who permitted such a brutality against millions of citizens to occur on their watch are fully guilty of a crime against humanity and all still alive should be brought to trial and prosecuted.

This includes Justice Ministers of Canada Kim Campbell (Mulroney government), John Turner (Trudeau government), Jean Chretien (Trudeau government), Rob Nicholson (current Conservative government), and Irwin Cotler (Paul Martin's government) and all others who served as Justice Minister and permitted this prohibition abomination to persist.

Irwin Cotler was Justice Minister when one of his minions in the court of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan sentenced me to three months in prison for passing a joint in March 2004.

When anyone from the cannabis culture reaches elected office, the responsibility on that person, having once been part of a persecuted minority, is much greater than that of any ordinary person. The elected person from the cannabis culture retains intimate knowledge and experience as to how insidious and abusive the arbitrary authority of government can be. So when someone from our culture reaches elected office, the betrayal is far more egregious if that person becomes a prohibitionist drug warrior. It is unforgivable and the greatest treason to decent human values as well as a complete negation of morality. That person is more evil because they know better, but for power and lust of domination, they betray us and become our worst enemy. In this class we can include many politicians, but certainly President Barack Obama.

So too is the responsibility for any Jewish person who achieves power in government, particularly a Justice Minister or Attorney-General. When a Jewish person turns his back on his collective history of persecution and becomes the channel for mass persecution of those exercising peaceful and honest lifestyle choices, he becomes a cipher for pure evil.

In this regard, you have to ask yourself, as I did in September 2004 while serving a three-month prison sentence in a Prairie gulag a thousand miles from home, what do you call a Jewish human rights activist who, as Justice Minister, betrays the principles of decent humanity for arbitrary punishment and power? Do you call him a Nazi Jew or a Jewish Nazi? To me, there is no doubt about his capability and capacity for evil as a government agent; the only question is the appropriate terminology to describe his perfidious deal with evil. And so I wrote that in my prison blog while serving that incarceration in September 2004. My diary thoughts on what was the appropriate description to refer to Irwin Cotler were never printed anywhere, and in fact, you can't find my original daily diary notes of that incarceration anywhere – which is quite unfortunate, because my writings from August 20 to October 19, 2004, the period of incarceration (I served seven days in March 2004 awaiting bail) produced some of the best work I have ever done.

Ten months later, the Liberal Justice Minister Cotler, in collaboration with Republican President George W. Bush's Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, signed on to the extradition request of the United States seeking to imprison me in the US for my political activities.

In May of 2010, Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson handed me over to Democratic President Barack Obama's Attorney-General Eric Holder's US federal justice system to be incarcerated for a five-year sentence, despite never having gone to the United States.

Michael Coren's column in the Toronto Sun ridiculed and insulted me, my wife Jodie, and the rest of the legalization movement. It's such a pity that a man who prospers free from persecution can so easily cast away the collective past history of our people. In 1983, I wrote a biography of a woman from my hometown of London, Ontario – Fanny Goose – who escaped the Holocaust in Europe, seeing every member of her huge family murdered. It's a compelling and riveting story, a triumph of her spirit during a staggering, horrific ordeal. The lesson of the holocaust is 'Never again'. Not for anyone, anywhere, of any peaceful and honest lifestyle, to suffer the arbitrary cruelty of immoral government power. Not for race, not for religion, not for the plants you grow in your home, or backyard. Not for your beliefs or peaceful lifestyle. No way, no how, not ever again.

Cannabis Prohibition has been abusive to well over 30 million North Americans (and I do not, for lack of statistics, include Mexico or Central America here, but more's the tragedy, one can be certain) in the last 50 years, and Michael Coren thinks it is no more than a parallel "to the right to masturbate".

He's wrong. Never Again. Not now, not ever, no way, no how, can he make prohibition and its persecution in any way legitimate. He's a disgrace to his journalistic profession, as a Canadian. Michael Coren is an apologist for the powerful and cruel. He spits on the persecution and injustice meted out to myself, and my people. For that, he is loathsome. He should know better.

It’s December 6 today, I've got 4 months until I get my transfer-back-to-Canada application to the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. It’s 580 days to go if I serve my entire sentence here in the US federal prison system (up to July 9, 2014) with 1,010 days now served – that’s 33 months done, 19 to go (on a 60-month sentence, I'll serve 52 months with my good time credit).

My band, Yazoo, performed its eleventh concert on the afternoon of Saturday, November 24. Our set list turned out to be 20 songs in just over 2 hours. I've been playing a bass guitar just over 18 months now, having never played any instrument in my life prior to coming here to Yazoo City federal prison (one of the inspirations for the name of the band, which I chose, since it’s my band). I remember shortly after my arrival picking up a guitar on May 7, 2011 and deciding to learn the instrument.

I struggled and showed no talent, but on the tenth day, a guy named Grizz who was in this amazing band I had heard in concert in my first weekend here noticed I was giving it a try, and said "Have you ever considered learning the bass guitar?"

"Uh no, should I?" I said.

"Well, I think our band is going to need a bass player shortly, and if you worked on the bass everyday, I'd teach you, and you could be in our band."

I was dumbfounded. "You mean, I could be in your amazing band if I started learning the bass????!!!!"

"Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard."

Rock and roll fantasy overruled my trepidation, and I said yes. So Grizz, a guy who'd been inside 30 years (1982 to 2011) with swastikas and white power tattoos and slogans covering his entire arms, patiently and kindly and expertly taught me bass guitar starting that day and every day for 2-4 hours, always outside, often in 100 degrees Fahrenheit days for weeks on end. Despite the tattoos and Grizz's gruff persona, I never heard him say an insulting word about anyone in all the time I knew him. He said he'd left that confrontation part of his life (the swastika/white power stuff) behind him.

Six weeks later on July 2, 2011, I performed live my first concert, 8 songs, including All Along the Watchtower, Purple Haze, Sunshine of Your Love, Tightrope (SR Vaughan), and Johnny B. Goode. I only was able to do root notes, but I got through it okay, and I was pleased that I was a 'musician' now. Grizz was the bandleader, and a great bassist, but Grizz wanted to be the singer in the band and play rhythm guitar, Terry would be the lead guitarist, and Sapp would be the drummer, so that’s how I got the job on bass. The name of the band was 'Stuck' (as in 'Stuck in Prison').

Oddly, within a few weeks of working together, he made me assistant band leader (though I knew virtually nothing at the time about the mechanics of music or being in a band) and he had the band paperwork amended to say that. "In case something happens to me, you can keep the band going," he said.

Well, by August, just before our second concert, something did happen to Grizz. The prison assigned him a new cellmate, one whom, it was said, has a sex offense. Well, Grizz was very old-school, spending most of his 30 years inside in penitentiaries (maximum security), and he could not be the cellmate of a sex offender. Grizz had actually received an additional ten years to his remaining prison sentence for stabbing a sex offender nearly to death; in this situation Grizz tempered his instincts and merely said to the new cellmate, "you can't be in here with me, you have to roll up." In prison, to 'roll-up' means to turn yourself in to protective custody, which is solitary. But when someone here is forced by other prisoners to 'roll-up', the prison demands to know who pressured you to 'roll-up', otherwise they won't put you in protective custody. So that day both the so-called sex offender and Grizz were taken to the SHU (solitary housing unit), and after several months in solitary for each, both were transferred to other facilities.

Then my drummer Sapp got into a fight, so he went to solitary for two months. So in August last year I was missing my drummer and bandleader/vocalist/rhythm guitarist. The band went through some adjustments, merging with a reggae band for two months, doing Bob Marley songs like I Shot the Sheriff, No Woman, No Cry and Stir It Up.

Then we reformed our original group, as Sapp came back, we got a new vocalist, and the band became Yazoo (because it’s where we met, where I learned bass, and where we practice and play). We got a singer named Victor, who also played rhythm guitar. In that period, we played country songs like Out In The Backwoods, Killing Time, Don't Blink, and Way Out Here and rock songs. By this point I was no longer doing songs in root notes, but full proper bass lines, but my notes weren't ringing out enough and I wasn't always very smooth.

Victor decided to strike out and form his own band about a year ago (he still hasn't ever got a band successfully together, but we're still friends and he's a great talent), so we got soul singer named Trece as our vocalist and went through a period of soul/R&B songs like Sittin on the Dock of the Bay, A Change is Gonna Come, Stormy Monday, Easy Like Sunday Morning. Trece was released from prison at the same time as our rival band 'Out of Bounds' broke-up when their drummer/singer was transferred, so Chap the bass player and Don the guitarist from Out of Bounds joined us back in March, and that’s been our line-up since: Chap singing the vocals, I play bass, and Don and Terry do alternate leads on guitar.

It’s a pretty amazing band now, and I can't believe I'm in it. I've practiced every day for over 18 months and I've really gotten much better. My finger memory is way improved, my notes ring out, and I can be taught a song often in just two or three afternoons. Sometimes, like with Texas Flood (by Stevie Ray Vaughan), or Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid (Led Zeppelin), it takes me 30 days to get it right though. Just today, in my afternoon practice I was doing Money by Pink Floyd and I sounded so much better than six months ago – it’s been that long since I even practiced it, and I sounded much better just doing it out of the blue after that huge absence than I used to sound, even when I practiced every day for weeks back then.

I practice on an acoustic bass every afternoon, which is kind of largish and a little awkward to set comfortably on one's thigh to play, and then on Monday evenings we rehearse as a group our songs that we've been practicing on independently. Terry and I always practice together every afternoon, and Don and Chap often work together in the evenings, and all five of us put it together Monday nights from 5:30 to 8pm in the wonderful electric band room with amplification and electric bass and guitars. I play with a Carvin bass to a Carvin amplifier on Monday nights and in concert. When I get out I'm going to buy an electric Fender Precision Select bass.

Our set list on November 25 was:

1. Running Down A Dream (Tom Petty)
2. Come Together (Beatles)
3. Black Magic Woman (Santana)
4. Jumpin Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
5. Blue on Black (KW Shepherd)
6. Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid (Led Zeppelin)
7. Too Young (Garth Brooks)
8. Turn the Page (Bob Seger)
9. Pride and Joy (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
10. Texas Flood (SRV)
11. Plush (Stone Temple Pilots)
12. Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne)
13. Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
14. Sunshine of Your Love (Cream)
15. Enter Sandman (Metallica)
16. Hey Joe (Hendrix)
17. Purple Haze (Hendrix)
18. Red House (Hendrix)
19. White Room (Cream)
20. Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)

It was a beautiful clear, sunny afternoon and I was pleased with how the concert turned out, my only real difficulty was a cramp in my right hand (where my index and middle finger alternate hitting the strings) when Terry did an eight-minute lead guitar solo at the end of Whole Lotta Love, and as the bassist I do the riff B-D-B-D-E E-E E-E throughout most of the song, including the solo, and I just had to stop and hit the low E string for a minute before coming back in the riff once the cramp subsided. After 130 minutes of playing, I was tapped out!

Since Terry, Don and Chap are very experienced musicians with 28, 12 and 13 years respectively of regular playing to their credit, we agreed to scrap our existing repertoire for the next concert and develop a new set list, because they are a bit bored of playing the same songs with only three news ones each concert. So for the January concert (we're going to pass on a Christmas show, we won't have the new songs all ready), here's our set list, each of us choosing three new songs plus keeping Running Down A Dream, Texas Flood, and Turn The page, which we've only done once in concert:

I chose:
Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple)
Stray Cat Strut (Stray Cats)
Beautiful Day (U2)

Chap chose:
Your Disease (Saliva)
Isolation (Alter Bridge)
Last Resort (Papa Roach)

Don Chose:
All Right Now (Free)
Simple Man (Shinedown)
Kryptonite
(Don will sing these three while Chap plays guitar on them with Terry)

Terry chose:
Surfing With An Alien (Joe Satriani)
Boys Are Back in Town (Thin Lizzy)
Eruption/Ain't Talkin Bout Love/You Really Got Me (Van Halen medley)

I've already got the bass down for Boys Are Back in Town, Last Resort, Simple Man, and have a grasp on but need to do hard work on Stray Cat Strut, All Right Now, Surfing With The Alien (this is a fast song!!!!!) and the two Van Halen songs (Eruption is just a lead guitar). Then on to the remaining five!

I want to say thank you to the amazing people of Alberta's cannabis community who held their third annual Christmas fundraiser for me in Lethbridge, and raised a record amount of $1,680, which I am extremely grateful for! That will pay for my commissary (food, toiletries, clothing), phone and email, music downloads, photo copies, and postage for two full months. The first fundraiser was organized by Tamara Cartwright and Fiona Doherty, and Fiona is carrying on the work with other local activists. They have all been supportive for years, including my time on the Farewell Tour of 2009. Thanks to Fiona Doherty, Austin and Dana, the sponsors and stores who contributed, and the hundreds of people who came together to make this event fun, magical and so helpful to me. So I promise them that once I get out, I'm hoping to work with musicians, develop a song set list, put together a band and make my first public musical performance outside of Vancouver in Lethbridge, Alberta!

The two things that I'm proudest of about my time in prison is how Jodie has risen to the challenge and become the best she can be in activism and business management, and how I’ve developed as a musician. When this difficult time for Jodie and I is over, we will both have new capabilities and skills that we both otherwise would not have developed. That is the essence of successfully dealing with adversity: showing improvement and advancement as a result of the ordeal.

I can't wait to see that poster in Lethbridge, "Saturday Night! Speech by Jodie Emery, Music by Marc Emery & Friends!"

From Yazoo federal prison,
In Yazoo City, Mississippi,
Marc Emery

________________________________

A note from Lethbridge fundraiser organizer Fiona Doherty on the Facebook event page:

Hi! Just a final post on the Marc Emery Lethbridge fundraiser 2012…

Thank you very much to each and every single sponsor who donated the amazing prizes, please do your Christmas shopping with them as without their support we couldn't have these fun events…

BOBHeadquarters who donated the beautiful bongs and the volcano plenty that were raffled off, and all the silent auction and door prize donors–Charisma, B.C.P.R., Calgary 420, Amy Taylor, HeadWearz, CCHQ…

Thank you to the Lovely Lisa MamaKind for donating books, signing autographs, and sharing her bongslut wisdom…

Thank you DeathPledge, you guys are a kick ass band!!!

Thank you to Damage Inc., you really ARE the best Metallica tribute band in western Canada!!

Thank you Moose Hall for graciously hosting us for the third year in a row…

Thank YOU to everyone who came out, bought tickets, played the raffle and silent auctions, and made sure that you supported something very important–our Canadian sovereignty! Between all of us, we just sent a bank draft for $1,682.50 to Jodie Emery to help make things easier for her and Marc; and to show that we care and can make a difference from our little city!!

Thanks for making this year a success, Lethbridge activists!!!
See you all next year!
~peace!~