Utah Rave Shut Down: Looks Into An Impending "Rave"nous Police State

I'm not much of a rave person. But like a lot of things, it's kind of a "to each his own" deal. The music I'm kind of into, the crowds... not so much. I do concerts and large public gatherings on rare occassions, but I'm starting to digress. Back to the issue at hand for a moment.

At 11:30 p.m. this past Saturday in Utah, a legal outdoor music event reffered to as a "rave" was shut down by law enforcement. There was no apparent reason for the law enforcement to be there in my opinion. It seems to me that the law enforcement heard the word "rave" and ran in guns ablaze (metaphorically speaking, of course) because of the stereotypical associations with the word. You know, youth, drugs, lawbreaking, etc...

As my understanding of the concept goes, "raves" are typically underground music events held in abandoned warehouses / buildings and the like, occassionally clubs. Posting and espousing a mantra of peace, unity, respect... and something else that escapes my mind at the moment. Sometimes raves get a loose association with the anarchist movement (that part seems pretty much like bollicks to me). Drugs and drug use don't seem to be actively promoted but usually is kind of overlooked. But mostly its just a lot of people getting together and enjoying trance / techno / rap music. That's my limited understanding of raves, and a more extreme version of this is likely what the law enforcement was operating under at the time. I'll try and go to a few one day and revisit the topic in the future. I'm sure I'll get a lot of comments about this, trying to correct me on the nature of raves, and I wholeheartedly encourage the submission of such comments. I genuinely would like to learn more about these events.

Back to the event in particular, it seems to me that it was simply an outdoor promotional concert that just capitalized on the word "rave." To my knowledge, the organizer had a business license, got an outdoor gathering permit from the county, took out a $2 million insurance policy for the event, hired security for the event to "keep the peace" and confiscate drugs and other contraband. But for some reason law enforcement clad in what looks more like military gear and fatigues even than SWAT gear and broke up what seemed to be Woodstock-light.

The thing that distresses me more than the event itself is the utter lack of mainstream news coverage. I've only noticed a few cordial nods at some places, but overall the almost police-state-like nature of the approach to it. Instead, they all seem to be ratings-milking the Cindy Sheehan protest and polarizing it and throwing it all about the political spectrum since it seems that everybody under the sun can find something from this to use and further their own cause, whatever that cause may be.

You can find some pictures from the rave raid as well as a compilation of related articles here at Infowars.com.