John Sinclair and the 40 year Freedom Rally by Fly

Today, the 10th December 2011 is the 40th anniversary of the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, a fairy-tale like happening that led to the main goal of freeing John Sinclair from the clutches of the man (a trumped up 10 year prison sentence for possession of two Marijuana joints).

John has continued his work as a poet activist, writer, performer and tireless drug reform proponent throughout the 40 years since the Rally, and let’s not forget for 10 years previous to 1971 where John helped nurture what became fabled as “the 1960’s countercultural revolution” John was mixing up the medicine: a highly potent cocktail of beatnik poetry, Jazz, Blues and consciousness expanding compounds blended into an open source cultural festival, a social movement, facilitating workshops, concerts, readings, food programs, and underground publications detailing the results of their work: F-E-E-D-B-A-C-K

John soared with his contemporary’s Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Krassner, Jerry Rubin, Ed Sanders, William S. Burroughs, Ken Kessey, and many more; way over the heads of any existing cultural authorities and/or institutionalized squares, and so, like so many of his contemporaries, John Sinclair was ridiculed, hounded, beaten, discredited and jailed by the American Tsarist Government in retaliation for such heady flight, and for his successful social engineering without help, or consent from the Gov. (See Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tim Leary’s battles with the authorities, or more precisely operation Cointelpro).

However, the recordings of the music and speeches, the posters and the texts cannot be fully erased or censored and many artefacts have made it through into the 21st century, existing to wedge an alternative view, somewhat in step with the Occupy movement, open source movement and anti-war (drug wars and metal warfare) movements. And so what have we learnt from the 1960’s experience with alternate cultures?

Within the capable arenas of John Sinclair’s genius, I’m happy to communicate that John lives and breathes, speaks and writes this lineage into the hearts and minds of any who would grow a new ear. Listen, read and get high with John Sinclair on the 40th anniversary of his Freedom and a moment when the dedication of the people, his friends, rose to reverse injustice and led to the reform of wrong-headed laws. Yes.

--Steven 'Fly' Pratt.

http://www.johnsinclair.us/

http://www.tapdetroit.com/?page_id=141

http://www.aadl.org/node/191049

http://metrotimes.com/mmj



FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES 2011