On Saturday, October 18th, Yoga Now Studios in Chicago will launch their new lecture and workshop series with a reprise of my M.A.P.S/Entheon Village DreamRise presentation from this year's Burning Man festival, "The Secret History of the War on Drugs." In case you missed all the hub bub, this talk I gave was the one piece of "politics" out of the whole festival that the Wall Street Journal chose to "report" on for their review of this year's theme, "The American Dream."
"The Secret History of the War on Drugs" began as a section of Exile Nation, the book I have been writing over the course of the last year that chronicles my experiences in the drug war as both a recovering addict and activist working to raise awareness and reform drug policy, and the time I spent in prison on a non-violent drug possession charge.
"Secret History" cobbles together the fascinating and utterly shocking true history of American drug policy, where nothing is as it appears. My working thesis, as I explained to the WSJ, is that the American government has created many of the drug problems it claims the War on Drugs is supposedly designed to address. As you can probably imagine, I'm just a tad bit more candid about my conclusions.
Naturally, and expectedly, and in spite of quite a bit of source material I provided, the Journal called it a "preposterous conspiracy theory." It becomes even less surprising when you learn that the writer, Travis Kavulla, is an evangelical christian and journalism fellow for the ultra-conservative Phillips Foundation. If nothing else, the article was a paen to the utter lack of seriousness and comprehension the mainstream establishment tosses in our direction. But consider what incredible strength exists when you can quietly subvert right out in the open just by doin' your thing, because the power structure doesn't recognize you as a threat.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. – Gandhi
The drug war is one of those topics that is always met with fierce resistance for a number of reasons involving class and race and cultural identity. But more than that, it is one of those archetypal issues that is in conflict with the American mythology that we are goverened by the rule of law, and the morality of righteousness.
One of the great new stories we need to learn is the true story of US involvement in the global drug trade and its integral role in the American economic and political systems.
In case you can't make it to Chicago, both M.A.P.S. and Healing the
Nations posted recordings of the series (you can find Daniel, and the Shulgins,
and Rick Doblin's talks there as well)
This lecture is being presented in collaboration with Entheon Village and the Chicago Consciousness Cafe.
Saturday, October 18th, 2008, 1-4pm
Yoga Now Gold Coast
742 N. LaSalle St.
Chicago, IL
$10 suggested donation, no obligation, no one turned away.
Future Yoga Now series presentations include author/mystic Andrew Harvey and the Resonance Project in December, and the Pachamama Alliance in January.
Above photo: The crowd gathered for my talk at Entheon Village, Thursday August 28, 2008.
Photo Credit: Rick Kim Photography
