Over the years, the Burning Man Festival has become one of the most popular events and party destinations in the US and has drawn tens of thousands of people in recent years. Unfortunately, this celebration of love and harmony is an enemy to the rigid bureaucracy and control freaks in the state. Last year, as TFTP reported, law enforcement attempted to turn the event into a police state function with random vehicle searches and checkpoints. Now, the Bureau of Land Management says they plan on implementing drug screening checkpoints at all entrances to see if people are showing up with drugs in their systems.
The Reno Gazette-Journal reports, the Bureau of Land Management may require drug screens at every entrance of the festival. Naturally, the event organizers say that this would create massive delays and sheer chaos at the gates. They also bring up the completely unconstitutional nature of such an act.
The idea of drug screening 80,000 attendees is so over the top that even Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen noted that actions are unconstitutional.
“If someone is doing a search or screening, you’re still working under the color of law enforcement. You need to make sure you have probable cause,” Allen said. “BLM has a hard row to plow with that.”
BLM officials said more information on the screenings may become available nearer to the event, Aug. 25 to Sept. 2, according to the Journal.
Over the years, the philosophy of the Burning Man celebration has been to “leave no trace,” meaning leave the land just like it was before 80,000 people descend upon it. Over the last 30 years, this is exactly what has happened.
For the past 30 years, the Burning Man organization has worked collaboratively with the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies, the public, and event participants to be an exemplary steward of public lands, and to produce a safe and fun experience. We have strived to protect the cultural integrity of the Event while safely adapting to changing expectations and increasingly aggressive regulatory requirements. We are held to the highest standard of any permit on BLM managed lands and are proud of our environmental track record. Burning Man is now the largest Leave No Trace event in the world. Black Rock City has also become a significant economic engine, bringing $70 million into the Northern Nevada economy each year.
Despite this environmentalist ideology, the group has found themselves in the cross hairs of the state who is attempting to regulate the event out of existence.
According to new regulations, federal government agents would be required to oversee the festival and manage areas previously managed by qualified staff. This would ruin the festivities.
As TFTP has previously reported, Burning Man has long been the target of government agencies despite not causing problems. The very idea of party-goers peacefully celebrating at an event for days on end is the antithesis of the establishment and the frequent attacks on the festivities highlights this.
Last year, we pointed out some sneaky tricks that officers were using to stop people. They were pulling them over for having dim tail lights, or any of obstruction of view in their windows, which is common when people are carrying camping gear. As soon as someone is pulled over, officers are ready nearby with drug dogs to justify a search on the vehicle. Some posters on social media said that police are profiling drivers and pulling over anyone who looks like they would be attending the festival.
This was confirmed by local newspaper ThisIsReno who reported that police in the region had orders from the federal government to target cars that are on their way to Burning Man and search them for drugs.
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe’s Secretary Brenda Henry told Reno reporter Bob Conrad that these orders came straight from “the top.” When Conrad asked, “You mean from President Trump?” Henry replied “Yes.”
“If you don’t have anything to hide, you’re good to go,” Henry said.
The Burning Man Festival has long been a target of the Feds, who are threatened by the counter-culture nature of the event and its attendees. Burners have even been labeled as terrorists by the feds, as it was revealed in a 2015 Freedom Of Information Act request that the FBI sent undercover agents to the festival under the pretense of gathering intelligence on terrorists.
The 16-page document released under duress by the FBI is still heavily censored — especially parts pertaining to high-tech police surveillance equipment used to “gather information.”
The fact that terrorism is used as an excuse for the surveillance is interesting, especially because the FBI notes in its report that the festival is a “cultural and artisan event, which promote[s] free expression by the participants.”
Apparently, art and free expression can now be equated with terrorism, environmental degradation, and general enemies of the state and all those who attend must submit their bodily fluids for testing.
#1: Hondo68 To: Deckard, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, Trump, *Bill of Rights-Constitution* (#0)
We Should Fear ‘Brave New World’ More Than We Do ‘1984’
.........
Orwell’s Collectivist Nightmare Differs From Our World
First, the Inner Party of Orwell’s totalitarian state is founded on a collectivist nightmare called “Ingsoc,” dreamed up by intellectuals who believe they are superior to their fellow human beings. The book’s villain, O’Brien, implies he actually helped write a book called the “Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.” It’s a forbidden text by a dissident named “Goldstein,” one that “1984”’s more daring citizens furtively pass around among themselves. (O’Brien might even be Goldstein, although this is not clear in the book.) In any case, O’Brien knows the book chapter and verse, even better than the traitors do.
Trump and his populists are many things, but they are not intellectuals. Their movement is about as organized as a yard full of fireflies. None of them are in danger of writing a book of any depth or meaning that might fuel a movement.
It is true that Trump advisor Steve Bannon has referred to himself as “a Leninist.” But as someone who knows a thing or two about Leninism, I have to say that I’m not sure Bannon understands the term. Leninism, which decayed into the Stalinist nightmare that was the prototype for “1984,” was a method of strict party organization. It wasn’t about smashing the state—it was about creating disciplined and focused revolutionaries who wanted to capture the state and then further an ideological revolution.
Orwell’s World Is About Discipline And Vision
Orwell’s Oceania is a Leninist state because it thrives on hierarchy and discipline, with the Inner Party controlling the less-reliable Outer Party, who serve as the workers and bureaucrats of the totalitarian state. Beyond the government blocks in which these repressed drones live, there is the old city—the remnant of one of the many great wars fought in the novel’s past. The old city is full of the “proles,” or the proletariat, the ignorant masses who are left alone to putter about in poverty. Indeed, Smith believes that the proles are the only hope for overthrowing the regime, but he soon finds that proles enjoy… well, being proles.
Trump and his coterie are not the Inner Party. They have neither the discipline nor the vision. They are, in fact, more like the proles themselves, albeit having accidentally gained the levers of power. None of them could explain a governing—or repressive—theory of power beyond a crude American nativism that would hold water for more than 10 seconds.
Nor is Oceania’s Party nearly as conflict-averse as Trump’s team. Whatever else can be said about Trump’s campaign platform, it was consistent on two themes: friendship with Russia and disengagement from major military conflicts. By contrast, the three major blocs in the destroyed world of “1984” keep their populations subjugated through constant war with each other. Trump ran on a platform of violence against certain groups, but on a retrenchment back home and staying out of the soup of the other major powers. (Well, except China. Maybe.)
Trump Is Closer To Corporatism Than Totalitarianism
Trump, insofar as he is a danger to civil liberties, shows reflexes closer to authoritarian corporatism rather than totalitarianism. He and his advisers are more interested in the obedience of the common citizen as part of a group enrichment of particular classes and corporations than with any overriding ideological loyalty. They play to the proles, rather than neutralizing them. They have no real interest in what anyone actually believes, so long as it translates into temporary political power and personal enrichment.
Orwell’s party, by contract, expropriates everything, owns everything, and controls every last detail of daily life. Their centrally planned economy doles out rations of chocolate and gin like precious resources. It is the high Stalinism of 1950, not the Chavez-lite nationalism of 2017.
And finally, there is Big Brother himself, omnipresent and glowering, always watching, always judging, rarely speaking, a figure—again, modeled on Stalin—of superhuman virtue, intelligence, industry, compassion, and bravery. Father, protector, nemesis, demi-god, the actual Big Brother is never seen in person, a Wizard of Oz whose curtain is never pulled back. His mystique is central to the fear and awe he inspires among his subjects.
Trump Is No Big Brother, Despite His ‘Alternative Facts’
Trump is a lot of things, but he’s not Big Brother. He can’t stay quiet or keep off of Twitter for an hour. We know every tic, ever stray hair on his head, every odd gesture of his hands. We know his views at length because he talks about everything, in random order, incessantly. If this is our Big Brother, we have little to fear from a new “1984.”
One similarity, I suppose, with “1984” is the way Trump and his surrogates have launched a full assault on the English language and the notion of truth, deploying terms like “fake news” and “alternative facts” and other clunky mouthfuls that sound as much like the detritus of a college dorm argument or a psychotherapy session as they do messages to an actual political community.
It is true that in “1984,” facts were utterly malleable, and language a weapon used to extinguish abstract thought. But again, compared to the titans of Orwell’s Party, the Trump team’s major players are pikers on this score. Whatever came out of Sean Spicer in his first press conference, it wasn’t Newspeak; it was a disjointed, fragmented language, like a poorly done speech heard through a too-loud speaker with a short in the wiring cutting out now and then.
You Should Be Scared About ‘Brave New World,’ Not ‘1984’
None of this is the regime that will create Oceania.
No, if you really want to think about the dystopian novel that should scare you in 2017, you must go to the another school of dystopian literature, away from the gray totalitarianism of “1984,” and enter instead the sex, drug, and leisure soaked society of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
It is here, in Huxley’s grim but orderly vision of the future, that Americans should see themselves as closer to their own doom. Huxley’s World State is run by benevolent—or so they see themselves—tyrants enforcing a genetically engineered caste system, in which the populace is repressed not by violence but instead anesthetized by easy sex, ample supplies of euphoria-inducing drugs, and meaningless entertainment. Pleasure and hedonism, not violence and party discipline, are the mechanisms by which society is induced to submission.
We Should Fear Hedonism, Not Just Totalitarianism
The world of “1984” destroys Winston Smith by torturing him until he is capable of loving nothing but the state. In “Brave New World,” the hero—a man raised outside of the World State’s “civilization”—resists the pleasures of the new order, until he eventually submits and ends up filled-with self-loathing. He then saves the authorities the trouble of dealing with him by hanging himself.
The nightmare of a society debased by its own affluence and hedonism, increasingly turning both to drugs and suicide, is far closer to America under Trump. There is no need for Big Brother when people willingly withdraw from public life. Winston Smith took every spare moment to read, to write, and to meet his secret lover. But in a country where Americans fill their spare time with substance abuse, pornography, and moronic television shows, there are few Winston Smiths to be found—and no need for them in a state that doesn’t much care what anyone does, so long as everyone stays away from politics.
Of course, neither of these dystopian nightmares are upon us yet, nor are they inevitable. One of the most endearing (and infuriating qualities) of Americans is that they don’t like to be told what to do. We retain a fierce streak of independence, even when it leads us astray. But make no mistake: we are killing our own sense of industry and independence on both the right and the left—yes, across the American political spectrum—and thus are far more at risk of sliding into the affluent but illiberal “Brave New World” than the regimented and disciplined world of Oceania.
And if we’re lazy enough to become the decadent but efficient society Huxley foresaw in “Brave New World,” we could eventually fall to the conquest of more disciplined and martial nations. If that happens, then we do indeed risk emerging from the wreckage as the impoverished maximum security prison of “1984.”
In the meantime, we had best think about how to recover our sense of dignity, stoicism, and self-respect before we court both of these terrifying outcomes.
Hondo68 posted on 2019-06-21 08:20:56 Reply Private Reply
#2: misterwhite To: Deckard (#0)
If people don't like it, move the venue to private property. Woodstock was held on private property and had 400,000 people.
misterwhite posted on 2019-06-21 10:10:51 Reply Private Reply
#3: Deckard To: misterwhite (#2)
You'd be thrilled if the feds searched without a warrant or probable cause anyone going on any federal land at any time. Actually, you'd most likely be in favor of cops anywhere doing that.
After all "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear", eh comrade?
Not a big fan of the 4th amendment, are you bobby?
Deckard posted on 2019-06-21 10:24:21 Reply Private Reply
#4: misterwhite To: Deckard (#3)
Federal land, federal rules. Have your drug party elsewhere.
misterwhite posted on 2019-06-21 10:57:31 Reply Private Reply
#5: Deckard To: misterwhite (#4)
No probable cause - no warrant.
I'll have to say - you are the most strident and unapologetic police state worshiper I have had the displeasure of dealing with, online and elsewhere.
Deckard posted on 2019-06-21 11:28:07 Reply Private Reply
#6: misterwhite To: Deckard (#5)
Yet the TSA can search everyone at the airport with no probable cause - no warrant. Go figure.
misterwhite posted on 2019-06-21 12:36:09 Reply Private Reply
#7: sneakypete To: Deckard (#0)
It can't be done,and if they try,I hope there are riots.
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-22 15:36:11 Reply Private Reply
#8: Hondo68 To: Deckard, misterwhite, sneakypete (#5)
A former NYPD narc sees the light....
Hondo68 posted on 2019-06-23 01:58:14 Reply Private Reply
#9: A K A Stone To: Deckard (#0)
Well here is one lie from the freak druggies.
Federal officials have informed organizers of the Burning Man counter- culture festival in Nevada that they left too much trash behind after the 2018 event.
globalnews.ca/news/4800179/burning-man-trash-2018/The way to know that garbage came from Burning Man, says Bryan Heller, the assistant director of Reno Public Works, is to probe its surface. If the trash is covered in chalky white dust, you can be darn sure it spent seven days on the alkali sands of Black Rock City, where the annual Burning Man event is held.
The dust isn't so much of an issue for Reno residents, though there are rumors that it's led to clogged hotel plumbing and busted washing machines. What really mellows the cool of the Nevada town's citizenry is the garbage itself. Burning Man attendees — returned from a week of self-discovery and partying on the "playa" — have the propensity to dump trash illegally around the city upon return to civilization.
www.sfgate.com/travel/bur...Burning-Man-garbage-reno- dumping-leave-no-trace-13186812.php
A K A Stone posted on 2019-06-23 07:04:43 Reply Private Reply
#10: A K A Stone To: All (#9)
No more articles from that freak.
If you post more I will delete them. Then if you continue I will delete everything from free thought project. Then I will just delete you.
I don't like liars.
Thanks for your cooperation.
A K A Stone posted on 2019-06-23 07:07:11 Reply Private Reply
#11: Deckard To: A K A Stone (#9)
Oh, so EVERYONE going to the event is a "freak druggie"? Nice job ignoring the 4th amendment constitutional issues here. How about if they set up a checkpoint and searched everyone going into an AC/DC concert before they even got to the parking lot? After all, some of them might be "freak druggies".
Up to your usual transparent routine again, taking one sentence from the article, nit-picking and making it seem like the whole story is a lie.
But then again - that's how people of your ilk operate.
You don't like the message or the messenger so you call the whole story a lie and then threaten to ban me for posting anything by that author.
Quite the little fascist, aren't you Sparky?
FYI, Matt Agorist has more integrity and credibility in his little finger then you have in your entire body.
He doesn't kiss cop ass and he points out cop corruption, so you don't like his articles.
Deckard posted on 2019-06-23 11:23:25 Reply Private Reply
#12: sneakypete To: misterwhite (#6)
Not hard to figure. Both public transport and human lives are at risk from terrorism.
That is not the case at Burning Man.
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-23 14:43:49 Reply Private Reply
#13: sneakypete To: A K A Stone (#9)
And of course we all know we can count on the feral goobermint to never lie to us,right?
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-23 14:45:32 Reply Private Reply
#14: sneakypete To: Deckard (#11)
Or a Willie Nelson concert?
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-23 14:46:51 Reply Private Reply
#15: Hondo68 To: sneakypete, Deckard, A K A Stone (#14)
Hondo68 posted on 2019-06-23 16:46:57 Reply Private Reply
#16: nolu chan To: Deckard (#0)
FAKE NEWS
The feds will not screen anyone. Black Rock City, LLC (BRC) will hire approved people to do their private screening, if they want the Special Recreation Permit to be approved. (BRC) seeks to have a temporary city on federal land at Black Rock, with plans to increase to 100,000 people. BRC is the company that runs the event and sells tickets to get in.
https://uproxx.com/life/new-rules-change-burning-man/
At issue is the granting of a Special Recreation Permit for Black Rock City, LLC.
Private security would be hired by Black Rock City, LLC (BRC) and approved by BLM. BLM does not do drug security screening, but may require the company seeking the Special Recreation Permit to provide for such screening as a condition of approval of the requested permit.
The feds will not screen anyone. BRC will hire approved people to do that, if they want the requested permit to be approved.
Note that as the event is on federal land, possession, sale or use of marijuana may result in federal prosecution.
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/06/caught-smorgasbord-drugs-burner-sentenced-34-months/1123894001/
https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/93518/175007/212561/Burning_Man_Event_SRP-Final_EIS_Vol1.pdf
[174 pp]
At 3-32
https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/93518/175007/212561/Burning_Man_Event_SRP-Final_EIS_Vol1.pdf
[702 pp]
At PDF page 338:
nolu chan posted on 2019-06-23 21:28:49 Reply Private Reply
#17: tpaine To: sneakypete, yall (#12)
Pete, I’m glad to see you’re still fighting the irrational clowns around here.
Haven’t been posting due to health problems. How are you doing?
tpaine posted on 2019-06-24 16:12:44 Reply Private Reply
#18: sneakypete To: tpaine (#17)
Welcome to the club.
How are you doing?
Better now,but it's been a little rough the last few months. Two heart operations and a diagnosis of Stage 4 Lymphoma in the groin,stomach,and chest.
I have had periods in my life that were more fun.
Don't really understand how or why,but I seem to be beating it and haven't even really been all that sick.
Biggest problem is chemo brain. I just call it "Mad Cow" now.
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-25 17:09:47 Reply Private Reply
#19: tpaine To: sneakypete, yall (#18)
Not much fun here either, —- and it’s flat amazing that you haven’t felt “all that sick”.
Good to see every one at the site is still truckin on...
tpaine posted on 2019-06-26 10:50:56 Reply Private Reply
#20: sneakypete To: tpaine (#19)
I know. I have a friend that was a VERY senior SF medic when he retired and went to med school checking my lab reports to let me know if they were sugar-coating anything,and last week he flat out told me "There is no way in hell a man your age should be responding this well to stage 4 lymphoma,and not even be getting sick."
One lab report last month stated "Remarkable recovery in the white blood cell count". "Remarkable recovery" seems to ME to be words rarely written or seen on blood work from cancer labs. My doc even insisted on quoting it out loud to me with a big smile on her face.
Which proves the old saying still applies that states "It's better to be lucky than it is smart".
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-27 02:07:15 Reply Private Reply
#21: tpaine To: sneakypete (#20)
At 82 I’m finally getting smart enough to realize how lucky I’ve been.
You still do anything over at FR?
tpaine posted on 2019-06-27 12:46:31 Reply Private Reply
#22: sneakypete To: tpaine (#21)
No. Jim Bob banned me permanently a decade or so ago. Maybe even longer than that.
He never got over the hard-on he had for me for exposing his pet "Green Beret General" as a phony. Turns out the guy was a teenager living in Texas.
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-27 20:44:34 Reply Private Reply
#23: tpaine To: sneakypete (#22)
I remember that incident vaguely, but I was banned by then, permanently.
Are any of the other sites you used to post at still operating?
tpaine posted on 2019-06-27 21:00:30 Reply Private Reply
#24: sneakypete To: tpaine (#23)
Liberty Forum,but it mostly seems to be skin-head wannabes there now. Used to love Goldi's site,but it shut down when she died.
I post a lot now on The Briefing Room. Their format/software takes some getting used to and it is awkward at best,but there are some bright people posting there.
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-29 10:22:39 Reply Private Reply
#25: tpaine To: sneakypete (#24)
Thanks Pete.. I’ll give that site a try..
tpaine posted on 2019-06-29 10:41:05 Reply Private Reply
#26: sneakypete To: tpaine (#25)
Cool!
There is always room for an independent thinker!
sneakypete posted on 2019-06-29 10:44:25 Reply Private Reply