Burning Man counterculture seeks social, political influence

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 9/1/03 | Don Thompson

[nutmeg]

ping!

[Timesink]

It's time to try to influence the very culture against which this year's record 30,500 Burning Man participants rebelled...

That's only 500 more than in 2002, and far more of the attendees are smelly hippies now than dotcom fraudsters, since they're all working at McDonald's now and can't afford the trip. BM has peaked.

[Salman]

Correct. Burning Man is much more dangerous and threatening to our freedoms and future.

Only if they are influential, and I doubt that.

A bunch of superannuated hippies? They are so over with, but they merely haven't died off yet.

If I'm wrong, they're a menace. If I'm wrong, prove it. This is sideshow freak stuff.

I'm more worried about Islamofascists.

[weegee]

No commercialization of the festival? And this had franchise potential...

[weegee]

The BM has passed?

Someone please tell these hippies their movement is over.

[weegee]

Except that they want to do it drinking mushroom tea, naked, while dancing around a large pagan figure.

[Mr Crontab]

One of the silliest things I've read in a long time.

[weegee]

Burning Man is attracting anti-capitalists. The antiWTO, antiG8, antiPresidential Convention, antiAmericanwar protestors probably made up a large contingent of the "counterculture" crowd at this event. The level of violence at their protests has grown; we are getting European style rioting at these protests (violence and vandalism).

The Islamofascists don't get a pass from law enforcement for their violent activities, the anticapitalists on the left coast do. Both pose a threat to our constitutional form of government, the degrees of threat may differ but they are both just as real.

[MattAMiller]

Dude I we were gonna like establish long-lasting political influence, but we totally flaked.

[Vigilantcitizen]

Thanks for the explanation.