Raves: Hope for America Isn't Dead

Almost everyone has heard about, read about or seen reports about raves. What are they? Raves are unsupervised concerts that usually take place in empty warehouses. The music is provided by DJs who spin moods and create a musical environment. Hundreds of people crowd dance floors and dance in various states of undress, intoxication and most are involved with any number of mind-altering substances. Sometimes there are painters working on group paintings and there are any number of other activities going on. Remarkably, most people are respectful and stay in their own groups. People do get out of control every so often and the promoters have ways of dealing with them. Rowdy drunks and stoners are driven home. All in all it's a system that works and there are few problems arising from raves other than individual problems with excessive drug or alcohol use. But violent crime is virtually nonexistent and when you have audiences as large as 50,000 people, that is quite a feat!

Now you're probably wondering why such activity shows hope for America. I'm not writing about the Obama or the Clinton kind of hope which is nothing more than hollow campaign rhetoric. I'm referring to real hope for grass roots movements that can reach out and change the current direction of politicians stealing our present and future. Why and how? Let me explain.

My son recently started a game console fight league based on the Play Station and Xbox games. He contacted someone who knew of a warehouse they could use and all they would have to pay is a small amount to cover the electricity. It sounded like a great deal. So the day of the gaming event, he shows up and discovers that there had been a rave in the warehouse the night before and a lot of people were still there in various states of intoxication and drug stupor. My son was upset because he had to wait until they cleaned up and cleared out before he could start setting up all the gaming stations. He had people coming from 40 to 50 miles away to attend this thing and it was his first real solo event. He asked me to video the whole thing to be posted on Youtube and on his Facebook page. Now I don't know about you but twenty to thirty years ago, concepts such as Google, Youtube and Facebook would have brought reams of laughter from even computer professionals. Now they are as much a part of life as a library card; maybe more so.

While I was setting up my video equipment, I started talking with some of the ravistas (My term for people who go to raves.) Here's what I found and why I think that the whole concept is positive rather than the negatives these events are usually cast as.

This group started three years ago with six or more people going into the woods to drum, commune with nature, sample the herbs and taste local mushrooms, etc. From that they started sending out flyers with phone numbers that had information about the next event or gathering. But what is interesting is that what started with six people now draws 350 to 700 people. They have had problems getting sites, people moving in an out of the prime group, marriages, transportation, communication, police and a host of other problems. However, they persevered. They kept putting the events on and rolled with the punches, problems and roadblocks any group like this encounters while growing as an event organization.

As I talked with the promoters who were now actually cleaning stuff and moving things to accommodate my son's event, I got the feeling that they were an enterprising lot. As we talked, I was impressed that while they understood government and government problems, they were hardly supporters of government solutions. They wanted to be left alone but were savvy enough to know they had to appease the powers that be to avoid scrutiny that could lead to censure, harassment and arrest. They weren't making anti-government statements but their statement were obvious indications that they were as fed up with government actions as the harshest conservative critic; yet, these people were hardly religious zealots or zealots of any kind except possibly for a hint of hedonism.

So, I'm talking with them and I get a nagging feeling that I had met them or their type before and just didn't immediately get a handle on it. Finally, it hit me. These guys and gals who were into music, art and all kinds of self-expression reminded me of the Tea Party members I had met. Of course, there were some huge differences. One of the major ones was age: The average Tea Party member is 45+, the average ragista was 27. But they reeked with hope. Both the TP and the ragistas absolutely were the most hopeful people I have met in a long time. These are people who actually think they can take control of their lives and do something guaranteed by our founders.

The TPers were trying to get the government and government systems off of their shoulders and out of their pockets. The ravistas weren't waiting, they were acting. Of course, they cooperated with police but in every other way, they were doing something on their own without approval, financing, support or anything from anyone in the government. In fact, they were the antithesis of government; they were people acting in their own best interest for their own self-interests.

As long as there are people like this who are willing to act without waiting to be told to act or given permission by some mindless, soulless bureaucrat, we have hope for the spark of individuality that has become at the same time the American dream and the American myth. The ravistas more closely represent America and American dreams than either of the monolithic political parties who almost exist as governments within governments. We have hope as long as there are pioneers willing to toil uphill for years to build a concept. Hope for the American way isn't dead. We have allowed the media to propagandize us into a belief system that is against our best interests. Ravistas may want weed and eye shadow but that is a milestone of freedom considering how Republicrats have and are turning us into a police state based on catering to self-interest groups who have the goal of getting government to do their bidding.

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