02-07-13-Joint Police/Military Raid on Maine FUDAfest in North Norway, Maine
FUDAfest: The Bust and the Busts
Roger Leisner
Radio Free Maine
Copyright 2002
Fifty armed local, county and state cops, some dressed as soldiers and brandishing assault rifles, terrorized families and children during a Saturday afternoon raid on FUDAfest in Norway, Maine on July 13, 2002.
The email said:
FUDAFEST (Fully Unclothed Dancing Activism Festival) will be held on July 11, 12, 13 2002 in North Norway Maine. There will be lots of local music, drum circles, puppet shows, a children's parade, free used tires and TV smashing, and petition signing. CJ Bunn of MassCann will be master of ceremonies. This is a peaceful protest against all unjust laws. Not everyone is naked but clothing is optional...come as you are. There is no charge to participate but late comers could be subject to parking fees.
FUDA
For more information contact fudafest@aol.com
I forwarded that email to all my friends stating
"This looks like a fun time. Take your clothes off and come to Maine."
As both the CEO and chief bottlewasher of Radio Free Maine, plus a shady character known as the Maine Paparazzi, I travel throughout Maine during the summer attending anarchist, alternative, lefty, pro-marijuana events. From the West Athens 4th of July Parade and Play to Reggae Cruises out of Boothbay Harbor to Old Hallowell Day to Harvest Fest, shooting photos, displaying photos of previous events and selling Radio Free Maine audio and video recordings of Noam Chomsky, Nancy Murray, Howard Zinn, Mike Ruppert and other marginal speakers.
I usually report on the Maine Vocals sponsored Hempstock during the summer, but with Hempstock in disarray and being moved to a mosquito/black fly infested rocky site in Norridgewock, I decided to go to FUDAfest on Saturday morning. Because I had tabled at the Arlo Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Inca Son concert on the Penobscot riverfront in Bangor on Thursday night, I missed the first two days of FUDAfest.
But Arlo was worth it. Over 3,000 people attended a benefit "Concert for Our Future" to honor an ill Pete Singer and raise money for PICA (Peace through Interamerican Community Action) and the Maine Clean Clothes Campaign. Area unions and the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council helped sponsor the event. Bjorn Claeson, PICA Director summed it up best when he said: "Whatever could go right seemed to go right that day: the weather, a brief lull between thunderstorm days; Ramblin’ Jack Elliot unexpectedly ramblin’ in asking if he could do a few songs with Arlo; Inca Son singing an unscheduled Happy Birthday to Arlo; the train slowly rolling by as Guthrie sang his encore "City of New Orleans"." During my college days in the late 60s, I rode the "The City of New Orleans" from Champaign-Urbana to Carbondale, Illinois, so I was in la-la land when Arlo performed the Steve Goodman penned song during his encore. I was primed for FUDAfest.
With Fully Unclothed Dancing Activism (FUDA) as his motto, Aaron Fuda has staged a three day event known as FUDAfest for over a decade in the western mountains of Maine to protest unjust and victimless crime laws. Being the only clothing optional festival in Maine, FUDAfest is a backwoods libertarian/socialist based combination of Nevada’s Burning Man Art Festival, Vermont's Bread and Puppet Theatre, the continental Rainbow Family gatherings and Hempstock all rolled into one. Bodypainting is offered for free (I had a radio tower with ivy growing painted on the back of my leg), local alternative bands get a chance to perform outdoors, workshops teach FUDAfesters how to be sustainable and live in anarchist communities, hula hoops circle the hips of young hippies, the daring swing on a 100 foot rope hanging from an old growth tree and people just gather and share and talk. At night, a giant bonfire blazes against a 2:00 a.m. Milky Way overhead. And through all of this, Aaron Fuda presides in an almost Buddha like manner. Providing a beautiful piece of earth where people of all ages and races can come together as FUDAville. As the welcoming sign says, "This is a Peaceful Place".
It hasn’t always been a beautiful piece of earth. Over 20 years ago, a double murder took place on the property. Plus, the area around Norway and Paris has a reputation for unsolved homicides. Just as the Maine coast is a smuggler”s paradise, rural Oxford County is known throughout the State as a great place to get rid of someone. But Aaron Fuda has changed all that.
After setting up my table in the front of Aaron Fuda’s purple and neon green Schoolbus camper, I starting politicking. Most of young people had been out of High School for about four to five years, had held about four to five jobs, all of which ended when the businesses went under, and had an incredible working class identification and solidarity. These are the poor, white trailer trash of Maine. The people Carolyn Chute writes about in "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" and "Snowman". When I go to academic, upper class events, most people look at my info and say, "Yeah, I know about that" or "That's simplistic, you can't redo the world". At FUDAfest, the kids and the older folks engaged in a dialogue and discussed their conditions as they related to the ongoing struggle. Yes, these working class radicals believe in peace, but they also believe in justice. And justice is not only forgiveness, but also accountability and restitution. And they believe they have the right to be nude, no matter what the victorian prudes demand.
A New England school teacher in her early 40s strolled up to my table, naked as a Jaybird. Gitano, as she wanted to be known, had traveled over 200 miles to take her clothes off and be free. Gitano had gone to college in her 30s, a non-traditional student who never fitted into any particular generation, a free spirit. Gitano was not only exploring and questioning body image issues, but was very interested in polyamorous relations. In her local community, Gitano was trying to break through the barriers of gender and monogamy and create a polyamorous group. Gitano wanted me to take a photo of her, but not include her face. Gitano picked up a "Bread and Puppet Theatre" inspired sign that said, "Resistance to the machine oriented details of life." and I snapped away.
While chatting and photographing a beautiful, young blonde as she was being bodypainted, Jim Ellsworth, a wobblie (Industrial Workers of the World) from Manchester, Maine shouted "Hey Roger, we're being raided". I was in such a state of bliss from the good vibes at the festival that I thought that Carolyn Chute and the 2nd Maine Militia were staging a fake raid. However, after confronting a soldier carrying an automatic weapon, I knew I was in trouble. A week earlier, a friend from northern Maine had laid some fresh, green buds on me. Fearing that a search would cause all kinds of problems for me, I sat down on a rock and stealthly deposited my stash and pipe in the tall grass next to the rock.
And yes, I did find my stash and pipe after the police left.
In a display of naked aggression designed to spoil FUDAfest, approximately fifty officers from various agencies, (MDEA agents; police from Norway, Paris, Livermore Falls, Jay and Bridgton; deputies from Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford Counties; Maine State Police; the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement; State Probation and Parole; the Maine Warden Service; and the U.S. Border Patrol) served a search warrant on Aaron Fuda of North Norway, Maine at 3:30 pm on Saturday, July 13. The new post 911 State Police Tactical Team, dressed like "Rambo", complete with camouflage uniforms, painted faces, and automatic assault rifles (including M16s and a H&K MP5 SD3 with silencer), created a perimeter around the festival and emerged all at once from the woods just as a puppet show protesting unjust and victimless laws was about to begin.
The State Police Tactical Team rushed in without warning and immediately moved to secure the area surrounding an old school bus, which Aaron Fuda uses for a camp. Two officers, brandishing automatic weapons, climbed atop the bus and established a lookout on the highest point of the festival area.
David C*J Bunn a/k/a Captain Joint, official host of FUDAfest, described the raid as follows: "I was throwing a burger on the grill, my wife Judy was putting soda in the cooler and my two kids were heading toward the FUDAfest stage for the Puppet show. I looked up to see a man poke his camo-helmet covered head around the corner of my tent. The head was followed by the rest of a camo-clad body and an assault rifle. My 13 year old son Cougar ran up saying ‘There are men with guns here!’ and I heard my wife say ‘It’s o.k., they’re part of the puppet show.’
I turned to see my other son Danny, who is 18, coming back to the camp site, he had heard the exchange between Judy and Cougar and said, ‘Hey Ma, those ain’t no paintball guns.’ I looked past our camp site to the trees lining the stage area and saw soldiers with full weapons ready, herding the campers out of the woods."
The search warrant included a recent aerial photograph (taken a couple of days prior to the festival) of Mr. Fuda's property and specified that police were allowed to search the premises and all persons on the property for marijuana, other illegal drugs, any cash which might be connected to illegal drug activity and firearms located in the vicinity of any seized items. The search warrant only allowed a daylight raid. Even the Judge knew that trigger happy lawmen could cause mayhem during a night time raid.
An MDEA agent said that Norway police requested his agency’s assistance because of complaints from parents about their children coming home from FUDAfest drunk, plus reports of drug overdoses. The State Police Tactical Team was called in because of reports of a major ecstasy and cocaine dealer hiding out behind a used tire pile armed with a .357-caliber magnum and a 9MM pistol.
FUDAfesters were told to leave the area for about two hours while the search was carried out. FUDAfesters were not allowed to remove their property or their vehicles, and at least one naked woman was not allowed to return to her tent to retrieve clothing. Agents searched tents, backpacks and purses, and with the use of a special tool inserted in a car window, opened and searched vehicles. Some "suspicious-looking" folks were searched on their way off the property, but most participants were not searched or questioned.
Josh, a ten year old boy, was trying to find his parents when the police asked to search him. He responded, "I’m 10, you have no right to search me." He showed his disgust for the sorry episode by turning his pockets inside out and demonstrating that he was not carrying any contraband.
Faryl Orlinsky, Aaron Fuda’s companion, said that the police broke into her van, searched it and left everything in a mess. "We were having a peaceful protest and we got raided. It made me feel like I was raped."
A small amount of marijuana, 15 marijuana plants, psilocybin mushrooms, hand scales and over $2000.00 in cash were seized in the raid. In an email, Aaron Fuda stated "The DEA would like the public to believe that the $2,390 they confiscated was drug money, when in fact, we have proof that $1,000 was from an insurance settlement for a car accident Aaron was recently in and the other $1,390 was revenue generated from the sale of FUDAfest buttons, money which would have been used to pay for the bands and other expenses for FUDAfest."
There was a distinct air of unreality as the crowd realized they were surrounded by heavily armed men and women. Is this what President Bush means when he says that Osama bin Laden hates American "freedom"? Jim Ellsworth asked a Tactical Team member if he liked his job. He replied that he did, so Jim asked him if he really thought he was doing a public service by busting up a peaceful party on private property. He replied, "I'm just following orders". Jim pointed out that's what the Nazis said, too. The cop’s embarrassed silence spoke louder than words.
At one point, a cop came to the crowd gathered at the edge of the property and asked if Aaron Fuda was there. I immediately shouted "I am Aaron Fuda", and when other people began to shout out that they were Aaron Fuda, the cop walked off in disgust.
When the police allowed the festival to continue, Captain Joint issued a plea to raise funds for Aaron Fuda, and in a true show of working-class solidarity, close to $1,500 was raised by Sunday morning. One speaker thanked the police for not hurting anybody, and also thanked them for creating five hundred more radicals. "The police are our best recruiters", observed a FUDAfester.
In a statement issued a week later, Aaron Fuda said, "As taxpayers we are disgusted by the astronomical expense that must have been incurred by the state in order to execute this raid, with the 13 different law enforcement agencies, that in the end provided no evidence to support their claims of drug sales or weapons. Instead what this produced was 400 new activists who can’t believe that our government would spend large sums of money on harassing peaceful protestors instead of fighting to keep terrorists out of our country."
A number of questions remain. Why weren’t dogs used in this so-called drug raid? Carrying out a drug raid without dogs is like conducting a high speed pursuit chase with a bicycle. Where were the crowd control tools? Raiding an event with over 400 people requires some tools for crowd control, but there were neither gas masks nor batons. Evidently, the cops were going top fall back on the old reliable tool, a shotgun!
Throughout the raid, I heard cops openly talking about how glad they were that the raid was conducted on Saturday, since that meant overtime pay. The raid was evidently a state-funded venture, and with Maine facing a huge budget deficit, one wonders why the raid was not conducted on Thursday or Friday, the first two days of FUDAfest. All of the local and county police had been recruited via a phone call on Friday, the day before the raid. Is it possible that the conducting of drug raids has become some sort of political patronage? That is, if you support the MDEA and their "War on Drugs", you will be rewarded with overtime work in a period of economic decline and instability.
Why was FUDAfest raided? According to the owner of Cosmic Charlie’s, a head shop in Augusta, Aaron Fuda was present at the 2001 Hempstock when the State Police entered the grounds on Saturday afternoon (another overtime raid). Aaron took off his clothes and confronted the State Police affirming that he had nothing to hide. Was the raid at FUDAfest revenge for this affront?
My best image of FUDAfest is late Saturday night. The bonfire is roaring. Painted, topless women are dancing on top of a log. Big Meat Hammer, a punk band from Portland, is tearing up the stage while FUDAfesters dance like banshees in the mosh pit. Aaron Fuda steps out of his bus stark naked and sits down next to the bonfire where he proceeds to bang away on the bongos between his legs. Aaron Fuda looks up with his Buddha smile and asks "Isn’t this great?"
As of this date, no charges have been brought against Aaron Fuda. He has filed paperwork for the return of the $2,390 confiscated during the raid. He is unable to secure an attorney because of his financial plight. Neither the Maine Civil Liberties Union nor the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) will help him because charges against him were not filed. Aaron Fuda has found the meaning of freedom in America.
Read MoreRoger Leisner
Radio Free Maine
Copyright 2002
Fifty armed local, county and state cops, some dressed as soldiers and brandishing assault rifles, terrorized families and children during a Saturday afternoon raid on FUDAfest in Norway, Maine on July 13, 2002.
The email said:
FUDAFEST (Fully Unclothed Dancing Activism Festival) will be held on July 11, 12, 13 2002 in North Norway Maine. There will be lots of local music, drum circles, puppet shows, a children's parade, free used tires and TV smashing, and petition signing. CJ Bunn of MassCann will be master of ceremonies. This is a peaceful protest against all unjust laws. Not everyone is naked but clothing is optional...come as you are. There is no charge to participate but late comers could be subject to parking fees.
FUDA
For more information contact fudafest@aol.com
I forwarded that email to all my friends stating
"This looks like a fun time. Take your clothes off and come to Maine."
As both the CEO and chief bottlewasher of Radio Free Maine, plus a shady character known as the Maine Paparazzi, I travel throughout Maine during the summer attending anarchist, alternative, lefty, pro-marijuana events. From the West Athens 4th of July Parade and Play to Reggae Cruises out of Boothbay Harbor to Old Hallowell Day to Harvest Fest, shooting photos, displaying photos of previous events and selling Radio Free Maine audio and video recordings of Noam Chomsky, Nancy Murray, Howard Zinn, Mike Ruppert and other marginal speakers.
I usually report on the Maine Vocals sponsored Hempstock during the summer, but with Hempstock in disarray and being moved to a mosquito/black fly infested rocky site in Norridgewock, I decided to go to FUDAfest on Saturday morning. Because I had tabled at the Arlo Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Inca Son concert on the Penobscot riverfront in Bangor on Thursday night, I missed the first two days of FUDAfest.
But Arlo was worth it. Over 3,000 people attended a benefit "Concert for Our Future" to honor an ill Pete Singer and raise money for PICA (Peace through Interamerican Community Action) and the Maine Clean Clothes Campaign. Area unions and the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council helped sponsor the event. Bjorn Claeson, PICA Director summed it up best when he said: "Whatever could go right seemed to go right that day: the weather, a brief lull between thunderstorm days; Ramblin’ Jack Elliot unexpectedly ramblin’ in asking if he could do a few songs with Arlo; Inca Son singing an unscheduled Happy Birthday to Arlo; the train slowly rolling by as Guthrie sang his encore "City of New Orleans"." During my college days in the late 60s, I rode the "The City of New Orleans" from Champaign-Urbana to Carbondale, Illinois, so I was in la-la land when Arlo performed the Steve Goodman penned song during his encore. I was primed for FUDAfest.
With Fully Unclothed Dancing Activism (FUDA) as his motto, Aaron Fuda has staged a three day event known as FUDAfest for over a decade in the western mountains of Maine to protest unjust and victimless crime laws. Being the only clothing optional festival in Maine, FUDAfest is a backwoods libertarian/socialist based combination of Nevada’s Burning Man Art Festival, Vermont's Bread and Puppet Theatre, the continental Rainbow Family gatherings and Hempstock all rolled into one. Bodypainting is offered for free (I had a radio tower with ivy growing painted on the back of my leg), local alternative bands get a chance to perform outdoors, workshops teach FUDAfesters how to be sustainable and live in anarchist communities, hula hoops circle the hips of young hippies, the daring swing on a 100 foot rope hanging from an old growth tree and people just gather and share and talk. At night, a giant bonfire blazes against a 2:00 a.m. Milky Way overhead. And through all of this, Aaron Fuda presides in an almost Buddha like manner. Providing a beautiful piece of earth where people of all ages and races can come together as FUDAville. As the welcoming sign says, "This is a Peaceful Place".
It hasn’t always been a beautiful piece of earth. Over 20 years ago, a double murder took place on the property. Plus, the area around Norway and Paris has a reputation for unsolved homicides. Just as the Maine coast is a smuggler”s paradise, rural Oxford County is known throughout the State as a great place to get rid of someone. But Aaron Fuda has changed all that.
After setting up my table in the front of Aaron Fuda’s purple and neon green Schoolbus camper, I starting politicking. Most of young people had been out of High School for about four to five years, had held about four to five jobs, all of which ended when the businesses went under, and had an incredible working class identification and solidarity. These are the poor, white trailer trash of Maine. The people Carolyn Chute writes about in "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" and "Snowman". When I go to academic, upper class events, most people look at my info and say, "Yeah, I know about that" or "That's simplistic, you can't redo the world". At FUDAfest, the kids and the older folks engaged in a dialogue and discussed their conditions as they related to the ongoing struggle. Yes, these working class radicals believe in peace, but they also believe in justice. And justice is not only forgiveness, but also accountability and restitution. And they believe they have the right to be nude, no matter what the victorian prudes demand.
A New England school teacher in her early 40s strolled up to my table, naked as a Jaybird. Gitano, as she wanted to be known, had traveled over 200 miles to take her clothes off and be free. Gitano had gone to college in her 30s, a non-traditional student who never fitted into any particular generation, a free spirit. Gitano was not only exploring and questioning body image issues, but was very interested in polyamorous relations. In her local community, Gitano was trying to break through the barriers of gender and monogamy and create a polyamorous group. Gitano wanted me to take a photo of her, but not include her face. Gitano picked up a "Bread and Puppet Theatre" inspired sign that said, "Resistance to the machine oriented details of life." and I snapped away.
While chatting and photographing a beautiful, young blonde as she was being bodypainted, Jim Ellsworth, a wobblie (Industrial Workers of the World) from Manchester, Maine shouted "Hey Roger, we're being raided". I was in such a state of bliss from the good vibes at the festival that I thought that Carolyn Chute and the 2nd Maine Militia were staging a fake raid. However, after confronting a soldier carrying an automatic weapon, I knew I was in trouble. A week earlier, a friend from northern Maine had laid some fresh, green buds on me. Fearing that a search would cause all kinds of problems for me, I sat down on a rock and stealthly deposited my stash and pipe in the tall grass next to the rock.
And yes, I did find my stash and pipe after the police left.
In a display of naked aggression designed to spoil FUDAfest, approximately fifty officers from various agencies, (MDEA agents; police from Norway, Paris, Livermore Falls, Jay and Bridgton; deputies from Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford Counties; Maine State Police; the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement; State Probation and Parole; the Maine Warden Service; and the U.S. Border Patrol) served a search warrant on Aaron Fuda of North Norway, Maine at 3:30 pm on Saturday, July 13. The new post 911 State Police Tactical Team, dressed like "Rambo", complete with camouflage uniforms, painted faces, and automatic assault rifles (including M16s and a H&K MP5 SD3 with silencer), created a perimeter around the festival and emerged all at once from the woods just as a puppet show protesting unjust and victimless laws was about to begin.
The State Police Tactical Team rushed in without warning and immediately moved to secure the area surrounding an old school bus, which Aaron Fuda uses for a camp. Two officers, brandishing automatic weapons, climbed atop the bus and established a lookout on the highest point of the festival area.
David C*J Bunn a/k/a Captain Joint, official host of FUDAfest, described the raid as follows: "I was throwing a burger on the grill, my wife Judy was putting soda in the cooler and my two kids were heading toward the FUDAfest stage for the Puppet show. I looked up to see a man poke his camo-helmet covered head around the corner of my tent. The head was followed by the rest of a camo-clad body and an assault rifle. My 13 year old son Cougar ran up saying ‘There are men with guns here!’ and I heard my wife say ‘It’s o.k., they’re part of the puppet show.’
I turned to see my other son Danny, who is 18, coming back to the camp site, he had heard the exchange between Judy and Cougar and said, ‘Hey Ma, those ain’t no paintball guns.’ I looked past our camp site to the trees lining the stage area and saw soldiers with full weapons ready, herding the campers out of the woods."
The search warrant included a recent aerial photograph (taken a couple of days prior to the festival) of Mr. Fuda's property and specified that police were allowed to search the premises and all persons on the property for marijuana, other illegal drugs, any cash which might be connected to illegal drug activity and firearms located in the vicinity of any seized items. The search warrant only allowed a daylight raid. Even the Judge knew that trigger happy lawmen could cause mayhem during a night time raid.
An MDEA agent said that Norway police requested his agency’s assistance because of complaints from parents about their children coming home from FUDAfest drunk, plus reports of drug overdoses. The State Police Tactical Team was called in because of reports of a major ecstasy and cocaine dealer hiding out behind a used tire pile armed with a .357-caliber magnum and a 9MM pistol.
FUDAfesters were told to leave the area for about two hours while the search was carried out. FUDAfesters were not allowed to remove their property or their vehicles, and at least one naked woman was not allowed to return to her tent to retrieve clothing. Agents searched tents, backpacks and purses, and with the use of a special tool inserted in a car window, opened and searched vehicles. Some "suspicious-looking" folks were searched on their way off the property, but most participants were not searched or questioned.
Josh, a ten year old boy, was trying to find his parents when the police asked to search him. He responded, "I’m 10, you have no right to search me." He showed his disgust for the sorry episode by turning his pockets inside out and demonstrating that he was not carrying any contraband.
Faryl Orlinsky, Aaron Fuda’s companion, said that the police broke into her van, searched it and left everything in a mess. "We were having a peaceful protest and we got raided. It made me feel like I was raped."
A small amount of marijuana, 15 marijuana plants, psilocybin mushrooms, hand scales and over $2000.00 in cash were seized in the raid. In an email, Aaron Fuda stated "The DEA would like the public to believe that the $2,390 they confiscated was drug money, when in fact, we have proof that $1,000 was from an insurance settlement for a car accident Aaron was recently in and the other $1,390 was revenue generated from the sale of FUDAfest buttons, money which would have been used to pay for the bands and other expenses for FUDAfest."
There was a distinct air of unreality as the crowd realized they were surrounded by heavily armed men and women. Is this what President Bush means when he says that Osama bin Laden hates American "freedom"? Jim Ellsworth asked a Tactical Team member if he liked his job. He replied that he did, so Jim asked him if he really thought he was doing a public service by busting up a peaceful party on private property. He replied, "I'm just following orders". Jim pointed out that's what the Nazis said, too. The cop’s embarrassed silence spoke louder than words.
At one point, a cop came to the crowd gathered at the edge of the property and asked if Aaron Fuda was there. I immediately shouted "I am Aaron Fuda", and when other people began to shout out that they were Aaron Fuda, the cop walked off in disgust.
When the police allowed the festival to continue, Captain Joint issued a plea to raise funds for Aaron Fuda, and in a true show of working-class solidarity, close to $1,500 was raised by Sunday morning. One speaker thanked the police for not hurting anybody, and also thanked them for creating five hundred more radicals. "The police are our best recruiters", observed a FUDAfester.
In a statement issued a week later, Aaron Fuda said, "As taxpayers we are disgusted by the astronomical expense that must have been incurred by the state in order to execute this raid, with the 13 different law enforcement agencies, that in the end provided no evidence to support their claims of drug sales or weapons. Instead what this produced was 400 new activists who can’t believe that our government would spend large sums of money on harassing peaceful protestors instead of fighting to keep terrorists out of our country."
A number of questions remain. Why weren’t dogs used in this so-called drug raid? Carrying out a drug raid without dogs is like conducting a high speed pursuit chase with a bicycle. Where were the crowd control tools? Raiding an event with over 400 people requires some tools for crowd control, but there were neither gas masks nor batons. Evidently, the cops were going top fall back on the old reliable tool, a shotgun!
Throughout the raid, I heard cops openly talking about how glad they were that the raid was conducted on Saturday, since that meant overtime pay. The raid was evidently a state-funded venture, and with Maine facing a huge budget deficit, one wonders why the raid was not conducted on Thursday or Friday, the first two days of FUDAfest. All of the local and county police had been recruited via a phone call on Friday, the day before the raid. Is it possible that the conducting of drug raids has become some sort of political patronage? That is, if you support the MDEA and their "War on Drugs", you will be rewarded with overtime work in a period of economic decline and instability.
Why was FUDAfest raided? According to the owner of Cosmic Charlie’s, a head shop in Augusta, Aaron Fuda was present at the 2001 Hempstock when the State Police entered the grounds on Saturday afternoon (another overtime raid). Aaron took off his clothes and confronted the State Police affirming that he had nothing to hide. Was the raid at FUDAfest revenge for this affront?
My best image of FUDAfest is late Saturday night. The bonfire is roaring. Painted, topless women are dancing on top of a log. Big Meat Hammer, a punk band from Portland, is tearing up the stage while FUDAfesters dance like banshees in the mosh pit. Aaron Fuda steps out of his bus stark naked and sits down next to the bonfire where he proceeds to bang away on the bongos between his legs. Aaron Fuda looks up with his Buddha smile and asks "Isn’t this great?"
As of this date, no charges have been brought against Aaron Fuda. He has filed paperwork for the return of the $2,390 confiscated during the raid. He is unable to secure an attorney because of his financial plight. Neither the Maine Civil Liberties Union nor the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) will help him because charges against him were not filed. Aaron Fuda has found the meaning of freedom in America.
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