Copyright 2004, all rights reserved
August 29, 2004
Ah, how quickly it comes around again, eh?
And maybe it’s the last Burning Man…if my ultra-paranoid reading of the tea-leaves for November is correct, Bush will be reinstalled. When that happens, Burning Man will be a gen-u-wine terrorist organization, and the jackboots will come stomping across the Black Rock Desert to herd us all into internment camps.
I’m doing my best to shunt these fears aside, but I’ve read the “Help America Vote Act” guaranteeing untraceable electronic shenanigans in vote-counting, the USAPATRIOT Act permitting W to strip anyone, anywhere, of their rights, including American Citizens… and the memo from White House counsel Gonzales (whom W, incidentally, reaaaaaaaly wants to appoint to the Supreme Court next term) saying torture is OK when the Preznit says—not to mention the torture and porn videos shot by Our Nation’s Finest in the 13 or so (Guantanomo and Abu Ghraib are but two in a huge, heretofore secret chain of U.S. run gulags, where we’ve been torturing and disappearing folks for years) prisons scattered from here to Jerusalem…
The stakes have never been higher, and I, for one, am committed to having the Burn of all Burns this year.
Salvia Divinorum, which somehow escaped the DEA’s list of dangerous drugs, will likely play a role. I purchased 10 grams of this dried herb over-the-counter at The Urban Shaman in Vancouver, B.C. I smoked it once, the trip lasts only six minutes or so, but an eternity passes for you. There is simply nothing to compare it to. LSD, Mushrooms (yeah, even the so-called “philosopher’s stone” caps from the Amazon), peyote, X…these are candy. Salvia obliterates all reference points, all dimension, all time. The entity (or entities, it was hard to be certain) that await on the other side ask only that you not be terrified. Terror serves no function in the realm of pure intellect; it merely prevents you from perceiving reality. Do not be terrified, they seem to say, and PAY ATTENTION.
Indeed.
What holds true in the Salvia realm holds true for the sober human, as well.
Terror only prevents you from perceiving reality.
So I fear this is The Final Burn….even if Ashcroft’s thugs don’t shut it down, if W “wins”, it means the coup is complete and even our votes no longer matter. The options then are stark: Fight...or Flee.
I’m a poor marksman, and besides, I could never afford that much ammunition.
So I’ll flee the country, somewhere cheap, or maybe a little studio upwind of The Urban Shaman…
But I am painfully aware that most people simply cannot believe that we have descended into fascism, despite the laws passed since 9-11. As an attorney, I promise you, upon my oath and license-- and my mother’s eyes-- that there is no functional difference between the current U.S. law and Nazi Germany, or Stalin’s USSR. But many of you have families to raise, mortgages to pay, “jobs” to do, and you will not be disabused of your delusions until it is far too late.
Peace, o my brothers and sisters. The times, they are a’ changin’, and violence lurks like a sleeping Leviathan, just below the surface. Our Peace is running out.
GB
