It seems that Burning Man just can’t get away from politics. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of all that time spent strolling the corridors of power in Washington.
The latest happening is a new advertisement from Americans for Prosperity, a “grass roots organization” that claims 2 million members which was set up by behind-the-scenes power players Charles and David Koch. They are mass mailing a flier to attack a politician from Nevada called Sheila Leslie, and using Burning Man as their motif because she passed legislation requiring fire performers to be licensed. Leslie is in a tight race to win District 15, which includes Reno.
Maybe they didn’t approve of the slightly less than conventional way the bill was signed? Looks cool to me!
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I wouldn’t call it a “dig”. The Koch’s are libertarians, so they are pretty much against ALL occupational licensing. Along with being in favor of drug legalization and gay marriage they probably have more in common ideologically with burners than Hugo Chavez.
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This is bs legislation that protects current practitioners from competition and doesn’t protect the public from anything. These protectionist licensing laws are always a scam to line the pockets of the people currently doing whatever it is – be in fire sticking, hair braiding, interior designing or whatever – it’s always a protectionist scam. If the Koch brothers are against it, good for them.
yep … just like they are ANTI-FREAKIN’-DRUG-WAR, PRO GAY MARRAIGE, PRO POT, etc. … the most misunderstood guys on the planet … Screw the licensing BS, it’s PROTECTIONISM … Good on ya, Walter! You’re ready for REASON.COM now, you will love it… LIVE FREE, Gary Johnson for President 2012
yeah, MARRIAGE, duh … typos are forever, corrections get forgotten, ah, well…
I’m not a fan of the Koch brothers. While they do enough harmful b.s. to way offset decent viewpoints on drugs, pot, or marriage they may have. Truthfully I don’t think they give two shits about this law one way or the other. The organization they fund is just using it against this politician, who is probably a decent lady if Americans for Prosperity are against her. But they are right that this is an absurd law and you nailed it Walter.
Oh, and by the way, I’ve got my representative introducing legislation to require a license for hula hooping. You will have to apprentice under me for two years before you can apply for a license. This is to protect the public, and the rights of hoopers by legitimizing the art form. So if your girlfriends are into that you need to send them over to my house for supervision. Now I’m off to my Shirt-Cockers Association Board (S.C.A.B.) meeting. We are trying to get the problem of unregulated shirt-cocking under control.
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seems like a really stupid law supported by mercantilist firespinners…
Yep. It’s right there in their name, “controlled”.
It IS frivolous legislation. If I remember correctly, the bill was supported by fire performers from the Reno area. Perhaps we should ask them why they wanted the legislation. Seems like they may be just a bunch of crybabies because they don’t get top billing at BM. We should throw all Reno fire performers out for supporting this crap.
I think the Koch-suckers are a menace to society, but after reading this I googled this bill and read the details on Controlled Burn’s site and I have to say, what a horrendous bunch of bureaucratic bullshit that essentially sets up this group, Controlled Burn, as a de facto regulatory agency controlling who gets to spin fire. Their claim was to clarify “sometimes inconsistent interpretation of fire permitting regulations”. Ok, you could have had a bill that did that without setting up some licensing scheme that requires people to apprentice “under the supervision of another, fully licensed fire performer.” Controlled Burn goes on to state,”By putting this into state statute, it legitimizes our art form and makes arbitrary application more difficult.” Yes, because art is only legitimate when licensed by the state with the establishment artist as the gatekeepers.
Ehr, it seems like they are defending that fire performing should be unregulated, not attacking fire performing or Burning Man culture. Seems like your Koch-phobia is blinding you…
take a look at the whole 4-page flier – they are clearly trying to reference Burning Man with their use of images and words, and associate the politician with it. What other politician do you see fire-twirling in any political ads? And this is coming out right before the election, District 14 is where Reno is – the fire performing bill has already been signed last year, and the flier is not calling for it to be repealed. It looks like a smear to me.
They are trying to associate the politician with silly, time-wasting legislation. If they were trying to associate this politician with Burning Man so what. That might work against a politician elsewhere, but not in Reno. I think the bigger story is a group of performers setting themselves up as the gatekeepers of their art under the guise of making permitting more uniform.
AFP is trying to associated Sheila Leslie with opposing Burning Man…