I am ashamed to admit this, but this was the first election that I haven’t voted since I’ve been registered.
You see I am so disgusted with this fight we engage in daily with “the powers that be” that I couldn’t bring myself to try to make a difference anymore.
When I turned on the news the morning after the mid-term elections I was shocked to see that Amendment 2 did not pass. The results…
57.55% voted yes
42.45 voted no
How convenient. Governor Scott won with 48.2% of the vote.
I couldn’t just sit here and accept that Florida voters decided against Medical use of Marijuana. I can count on one hand the people who I know who were against it. Most everyone I know is touched somehow by a relative or friend who could use Marijuana, whether it is a veteran overcoming PTSD, cancer, spasms or seizures.
So how did John Morgan’s 5 million dollars get thrown away like that?
I had to get to the bottom of it. So I set out to find out who was behind the movement against it.
I found a man, a billionaire by the name of Sheldon Adelson. He is a casino magnate from Las Vegas with a net worth of about 40 billion dollars. This man contributed 5.5 million dollars to the cause, but why? I wanted to know.
As I began my research on this billionaire I find an incredible individual that came from nothing, literally. He never even finished college. Without getting into the man’s entire bio I can tell you that I had mixed feelings about the whole thing.
I discovered that Sheldon’s son died of a drug overdose in 2005 in Ft. Myers, Florida. I had to roll my chair back from the laptop and think for a minute. For that minute I almost felt bad for the guy. He is just scared. Perhaps his son started out smoking dope and escalated from there. I couldn’t be sure, so I kept looking and digging.
Sheldon Adelson, who has been known to refer to himself as the richest Jew in the world and also as Sheldon Adelson III, even though his father was not Sheldon Adelson ,he refered to himself as the III because he, at the time was the third richest man in the world. He now stands at like number 10, depending on which article you read about him.
As I continued to dig I find that this guy gives away a lot of money. Mostly to Israeli causes and American politics. His contribution to the 2012 presidential election, the GOP specifically, was around 150 million dollars and he is gearing up for 2016.
I attempted to find what other states he contributed to in order to oppose marijuana and I found none. Not even Alaska who flat-out passed the amendment for recreational use of Marijuana. HMMM?
Why then?
This wasn’t about his son at all.
It turns out that Mr. Adelson has an interest in influencing Florida Legislators who are mulling over proposals for a limited number of casinos here in Florida.
BINGO! Pun intended.
Seems to me that he would want some stoners to go to the casino and forget how much money they spent.
So I am not so ashamed after all about not showing up to vote. I don’t think it matters. Republicans and Democrats are just labels. No matter whom we vote for they represent the Sheldon Adelsons and the Koch brothers along with the large contributors to their cause. When will we wake up? I would love to see an election of rebellion where not one of us shows up to vote. What will they do then? Probably the same thing anyway.
I can dare us all to not show up to vote, but we are such sheep. We follow the leader right into the stalls where they want us and we vote for the proposal of it to boot.
ramonapedron 