Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 2015
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2015 The Trentonian
Contact:  http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Edward Forchion, NJWeedman.com For The Trentonian

'SELMA' WAS A GREAT FILM, BUT MORE WORK IS NEEDED

I went to see Selma on Monday, "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day." I 
smoked two joints on the way and after seeing it, I gave it a 420 on 
the NJWeedman movie scale. A 500 means it's right on the money, but a 
420 is as close as you can get in my THC-enhanced movie evaluations. 
Other movies that I gave a 420 to were Half Baked, Soul Plane, 
Friday, How High, and of course Cheech & Chong's Next Movie.

I'm a history and news buff; I love to read history and current news 
events worldwide, and this movie Selma is a historical example of a 
worldwide news event.

I don't want to be a spoiler, but I believe Selma is a great movie, 
far from my usual stoner classics to say the least. I was told it was 
a black movie starring a whole list of black celebrities, including 
Oprah Winfrey. Trust me, folks: Selma isn't a black movie  white 
people, you should go see this movie. It's a movie about a very 
important segment of American history. It's a history movie. Selma 
could just as easily have been called "How the 1965 Voting Rights Act 
came to be." It's a movie Republicans won't see.

The movie successfully captures the public pressure MLK and his 
nonviolent movement put on the president of United States (Lyndon B. 
Johnson), the governor of Alabama (George Wallace), and the racist 
South that prevented Negroes from voting despite the Constitutional 
guarantee of this right.

Selma successfully conveyed how Martin Luther King Jr. specifically 
said to Lyndon Johnson that without the Negro right to vote, white 
state officials will continue to engage in oppressive policies with 
no fear of voter rejection; that when a white citizen is charged with 
a crime against a black person the all-white jury votes to exonerate 
him (like our secret grand juries continue to do now), and that black 
citizens couldn't serve on juries because they weren't voters and 
jury pools are picked from voters.

The right to vote ensures the Sixth and Seventh Amendment rights to a 
fair trial and a jury trial of one's peers. I have always championed 
the right to vote, and as an adult facing criminal charges I demanded 
jury trials. I'm only free to write this column now because a jury 
found me "not guilty" in 2012 despite the FACT that I was as guilty 
as George Zimmerman. I understand jury nullification works both ways.

This was a lesson I learned as a kid studying the civil rights 
movement, and it's why I've always thought voting is paramount - a 
vitally important aspect of patriotism and minority empowerment. I 
have no sympathy for those who choose not to vote - voter apathy 
affects everything from politicians' attitudes to the results of trials.

The crazy thing is, at the end of the movie I was expecting a 
storyboard to explain to the audience that just shy of the 50th 
anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the Republican dominated 
Supreme Court in 2013 eviscerated the Act.

That's what Selma was about, so I think it was a mistake not to show 
at the end of this movie what recently happened to the Voting Rights 
Act. Otherwise I would have given it a rare 500. (Five full buds)

Without the Voting Rights Act, many Southern blacks would still face 
all white juries, poll taxes, and registration questionnaires before 
voting or having to seek out a white voter to vouch for them in order 
to vote. At that time the federal government had to step in because 
the South and its politicians didn't want blacks to vote. It's 
apparent that they still don't.

No sooner had the current Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act 
in 2013 than the current Republicans began rolling back the hard-won 
voting equality in those same states with proposed voter ID laws.

It's no coincidence that these same Southern states and the same 
Republican Party now lead the fight against new citizenship and 
voting rights for our most recent minority  Hispanics. Sometimes you 
need to watch history to deal with the present, and this movie is 
right on target. The anti-immigration and voter ID laws the 
Republicans are constantly advocating for are very thinly veiled 
racist barriers and attempts to roll back voting equality for brown 
people. Hispanics are the new blacks, and Republicans are trying to 
treat them like the old blacks of pre-1965.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its legislative restrictions 
contained in section 4 had applied on a blanket basis to Southern 
states with documented histories of racial discrimination. Selma told 
the story of how this came to be.

The Supreme Court nullified it. Writing for the majority, Chief 
Justice John Roberts said, "The current coverage system is based on 
40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day; 
while Congress has the authority to monitor elections for fairness, 
the coverage formula is outdated and therefore unconstitutional." 
Roberts then invited Congress to "draft another formula based on 
current conditions." Which we all know the Republicans won't do.

For the record: I didn't think conditions warranted the Supreme Court 
eviscerating section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, but if I were ever 
to get to chance to ask the chief justice of the Supreme Court a 
question it would be this. (No, I wouldn't ask him to take a puff!)

NJWeedman: Chief Justice Roberts, I've studied your Voting Rights Act 
dictum. Couldn't this same legal logic apply to the CSA, the 
Controlled Substances Act of 1970?

We all know the CSA classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug. 
Schedule I drugs are described by the CSA as having no medical value; 
they are not accepted by doctors and are federally illegal nationwide 
as per the federal Supremacy Clause.

You don't have to be a stoner on his third joint of the evening to 
know that the classification of cannabis is clearly outdated.

Currently 22 states, including New Jersey, and the District of 
Columbia have legally recognized marijuana's medical value in direct 
contradiction to the CSA. There are hundreds of thousands of 
Americans who now have a doctor's approval to use marijuana 
medically. The CSA is far more outdated than the Voting Rights Act 
was, and in regard to that the Supreme Court declared "outdatedness" 
as grounds for something being ruled unconstitutional.

While elected officials like Governor Christie fight legalization, 
"We the American people" know the Controlled Substances Act is 
outdated, and according to Chief Justice Roberts' logic it is 
therefore unconstitutional.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom