on free and ancient medicines

  Sickness, like death, is a condition every living body must occasionally endure. Ailments come and go, ravaging this organ or that, sometimes effecting permanent damage, sometimes only causing the nodes to swell and the skin to appear loose and bloodless. In response to states of sickness, many Americans resort to traditional Western remedies passed down through the centuries, remedies designed to treat rather than to prevent. Often, these remedies fall short, their powers too weak to reverse the affects of neglect, procrastination, or downright abuse. With a significant portion of the American public lacking proper health coverage (see here), we are now witnessing twofold: steady increases in the costs of medical care (see here); growing numbers of individuals who, for whatever reasons, have allowed their potentially preventable conditions to become full-blown disorders (see here).
  Yet the individual is not solely to blame – the political leaders of this country have too long focused on their own re-elections and on fulfilling the demands of their friends and allies, forgetting that the sole expressed purpose of government, the only justifiable reason for its existence, is to make the American people Safe and Happy. Good health is the foundation upon which all actions and aspirations are built; it is a component central to the industrial, artistic, and spiritual endeavors that nourish us in body and mind; without good health, safety is a cruel and clumsy lie, happiness but a distant memory of better and brighter days.
  We could seek assistance in these matters from our elected officials; we could demand that our government provide ceaselessly for the general Welfare; we could rise up and say, “Happiness and Safety mean little if our bodies are weak and failing.” However, we would be fools to expect measured and timely response from houses and chambers that have too long now stopped their ears to the needs of the body politic while they with golden horns trumpet the causes and interests of an affluent plutocracy that now considers itself the rightful recipient of a disproportionately large portion of this nation's wealth.
  Rather than relying on intervention or assistance from without, let us take matters into our own hands, and educate ourselves to the healing powers of common plants. What many have been told to eradicate are in reality species both hardy and ubiquitous, plants that spring readily from the soil in most any temperate zone. Among these plants are: plantago lanceolata, plantago major, woodsorrels (oxalis acetosella), salvia officinalis, and the lowly dandelion. Among the benefits gained from the proper use of these plants are: lower blood pressure, rapid external wound healing, self-dissolution of bladder and gall stones, purified kidneys, cleansed livers, a strengthened immune system, reduced arthritic swelling, cleared sinuses, and soothed bronchial tubes.

  These plants go wherever the soil has been split or abused, crushed or laid bare by the passing of many feet, and at the edges of forests and pathways. They do not require regular care or special attention, and will grow in the least likely of places. When harvested at the proper time and consumed in the correct fashion (as teas, syrups, spreads, or powders), they can provide relief from many and various common conditions, from upset stomach and diarrhea to headaches, skin rashes, gout, and ill affects stemming from menopause.

  If the healing plants are consumed regularly, they can help the human body to run smoothly and efficiently, managing the frequency and severity of ailments rather than addressing them when they have become problematic. Unlike pharmaceutical agents, the side-affects associated with the healing plants are either mild or non-existent, which all but eliminates the probability of wrecking one's liver in the pursuit of, say, lower blood pressure. Unlike newer methods of treatment relied upon today, the healing power of these plants has been known to wise-men, shamans, and philosophers in many different regions across the globe for close to a thousand years. So powerful are they that even the beasts of marsh and field use them.

  Americans, awake! No longer must you suffer from lack of medical care. No longer must you live in pain or discomfort because you cannot afford your pills. No longer must you live in fear of sickness, hoping against hope that the inevitable will not occur, cursing big pharma and wishing that your elected officials had done more to fulfill the parameters of the Constitution. With the healing plants, you can conquer disease, cure ailments, and bring your body back into the harmony that nature readily and freely provides.

  For wherever the earth's abused and ignored, there grow leaves that heal and reward.

場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp