Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 18:06:50 -0500 To: [iowanor m l] at [commonlink.com] From: "Carl E. Olsen" <[c--l] at [dsmnet.com]> Subject: Freedom Rally Speech - READ! Text of speech at Boston Freedom Rally, Sept 21, 1996 Last night a voice came to me out of a whirlwind, and it said: Lo, the last days of the Drug War are at hand. Soon the countryside will bloom with fields of hemp, and the forests will be cut no more. Soon the prisons will open and our friends and families will be together again, half a million strong. And instead of building prisons, we will rebuild our schools and universities. Soon the government will return the cars and the houses it has seized, and the money it has stolen from its citizens in fines, court costs and lost pay. Soon there will be peace in city streets, the guns will be set down, and the policeman will be our friend again. Soon the Constitution will be restored, and the judges uncorrupted. Soon we will tell our children the truth about drugs, and the lies and slogans will be forgotten. Soon it will be legal to dance and party again, and the gloom that shrouds America will burn away like morning fog. Soon the armies of the Drug War will be dissolved, and the United States government will never make war on its own people again. Soon the sick will have the medicines they need. Soon we will sleep at night without fear of the knock on the door, and paranoia will be a thing of the past. Soon America will be Eden again, and we will grow whatever we want in the Garden. And I said to the voice in the whirlwind, when, when is soon? And the voice said: Beware! For the last days of the Drug War will be the worst. There will be more busts than ever, and more prisons built. There will be more lies and more hate, and the content of your blood and brain will be scanned by sensors and satellites, by piss tests and hair tests and polygraphs. The screens of your computers will be read half a mile away by black trucks parked silently in the trees. Choppers will shake your shingles, and searchlights and lasers will probe the corners of your houses. Before peace comes, you will be blamed for all the nation's ills, for its violence and ignorance, for its politics of universal abandon. In the final days you will be busted for speaking out against the War, and busted for thinking about Peace. And I said to the voice in the whirlwind, how long? How long is long? And the voice said: THAT IS UP TO YOU. Up to me? If it was up to me there would have been no War. If it was up to me America would be what it started out to be -- a nation of positive purpose, a land of hope and freedom. No, said the voice, it is up to you. How badly do you want Peace? Are you ready to fight for it? Are you ready to take the risk of speaking? Are you ready to talk to your parents, your brothers and sisters, your children, your legislators, your mayors and councilmen, your priests, your rabbis, your ministers, your friends and your enemies? Are you ready to do one thing for peace each day? Write one letter, put up one sign, convert one Prohibitionist, tell one kid the truth? Are you ready to organize? Are you ready to fight for peace? And the voice subsided, and I saw the prisoners of War, the prisoners of consciousness, pouring out of America's jails. I see them here today, ten for every one of us, celebrating their freedom through us this afternoon. -------------------------------------------------- The Erowid Entheogens Library http://www.erowid.com/entheo.shtml ********************************************************************** * Carl E. Olsen * [c--l] at [dsmnet.com] * * Post Office Box 4091 * NORML News archived at: * * Des Moines, Iowa 50333 * http://www.commonlink.com/~olsen/ * * (515) 262-6957 voice & fax * [c--l] at [mail.commonlink.com] * ********************************************************************** Reporters and Researchers are welcome at the world's largest on-line library of drug policy material at: http://www.druglibrary.org/