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
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* Carl E. Olsen * [c--l] at [dsmnet.com] *
* Post Office Box 4091 * NORML News archived at: *
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