A COP'S GUIDE TO BURNING MAN

OR

FASCIST FASHION ADVICE FOR THE NEWLY PROMOTED

By OSAMA BIN LARRY

So here you are at Burning Man. Newly arrived from the Academy and freshly promoted (after your Mother-Sister demanded that your Brother-Father give you a better job) to your brand new job in law enforcement, complete with your spit shined shoes from Walmart and your polished revolver from K-Mart.

What to do? Bust pot smokers for toking in the tent? Fine Ravers for E'ing in the open? Ticket all those bare titties you really want to grope? Or just make fun of all the people that are different from you?

Well, hold on there Jack Webb! Before you take your bullet out of your pocket why don't you sit down, loosen your 46 inch belt, and read this helpful article filled with hints and advice to handle all the Burning Nuttiness!

(And, you say to me between clubbing a black man to death, what if I can't read? Well don't worry. Just ask two Burning Man participants to read and act it out for you!)


Goose Stepping is NOT Modern Interpretive Dance: I know, it's so hard to believe, after all those long nights at the Academy Marching around the torchlight, burning books you couldn't understand, and saluting the pictures of George Bush, Jr. and Dick Cheney, but people at Burning Man don't really appreciate jackbooted thuggery.

Instead of rolling up in your SUVs with shotguns and assault rifles at the ready, try approaching people with respect and kindness. Or better yet - leave them alone. In case you hadn't noticed that's why most of us come to Burning Man is to get away from guys like you.

SWAT is a Four Letter Word: As your fellow Nazis in Blue will a-test the only people that bring the "real guns" to Burning Man are you. Most us aren' t armed, nor do we want to be. To be quite honest, no one at Burning Man wants to harm or hurt any one. Especially not you, Piggy Sue. That's why every camp you walk into people look at you and turn away. Not because they break the law and hide, but because you came around wearing a steel phallus on your hip.


So when you go into a theme camp two officers and a gift of a bag of potato chips goes a lot further than all the weaponry in Don Rumsfeld blotted military budget. Yes, I know the Sheriff, your boss and Uncle-Father, will be a mighty pissed off to find out that all the money he spent on tactical gear and helicopters might have been better spent on a couple bags of Ruffles and a case of Budweiser.

The only thing massive demonstrations of force do at Burning Man is piss people off, make them angry, and make them very scared. So is that effective crowd control? To have a host of scared, angry, and biligerant campers every where you look and all that emotion aimed at the Junior Jackboot with the five dollar tin shield on his chest?

I see drug users EVERYWHERE!: Believe it or not, the one reason people do drive sometimes thousands of miles is to get high. More importantly get high without you staring over their shoulders.

Yes, yes, I know. Law, law, breaking the law, up holding law. make me yawn. The fact of the matter is there is no law that says you can't look the other way. You do it all the time, we know. You let crack users skate, and you let cocaine dealers back on the street because in reality if you arrested every one who used illegal drugs we'd all be in jail including your Sister-Wife and your Cousin-Brother.

Let people have their fun. Let people get high and get fucked up for 6 days in their lives without thinking what's going to happen when the Law finds them.

And on the seventh day we can all be back in your world were you have the power of the states and we're just the peons.


In other words. DON'T BE A PIG!: The fact of the matter is that police have earned back a lot of the respect and admiration that they have lost due to the tragic events of 9/11. Don't prove that respect misplaced.

All I ask is that you, good officer, prove yourself worthy of the legacy of the men and women that rushed into the burning towers of the World Trade Center.

Prove yourself to be really worthy of the trust and respect. Don't be just another goose-stepping pig, marching through the camps and rousting every one you see.

Prove that you are worth the title of Hero.

Don't be another Pig.

- Osama Bin Larry

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