Colorado and the Rainbow Family

buckland

buckland

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I consider my self as an aging hippie type in general. You know but with the temperament brought on by 68 years of reality. I like the old saying that one needs to walk the spiritual path with practical feet. I understand peoples need to experience the community and peace that meeting in the wild enhances. I am a big fan of Thoreau.
But.
When the impact of doing so causes ham to the place you are celebrating in, perhaps an inward reflection on selfishness needs to take place.

Here is an article that I think speaks very clearly to this point.

In the same year the Rainbow Family established their non-organization, 1972, the legal scholar Christopher Stone advanced a provocative argument that has merits pertaining to current concerns about Rainbow Family’s plan to occupy Adams Park...

https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/guest-commentary-to-rainbow-family-who-speaks-for-nature/
 
We arrived in Montana's Big Hole about a week after the end of the year 2000 gathering. We passed through the Skinner Meadows while a few dozen Rainbows were still cleaning up, an exercise which appeared to consist of piling up 10' high piles of debris of all types and setting them on fire. Not the best of ideas in mid-July in far southwestern Montana. There were at least a dozen vehicles strewn about which had clearly driven their last mile. Something tells me they didn't succeed in removing them--no heavy equipment in sight ,just a bunch of individuals and beater cars and vans. The State of Montana, Beaverhead County, and the USFS compiled figures for the costs to the public in terms of emergency services in the field and in the one hospital in the county--some 65 miles from Skinner Meadows. I don't recall the amount, but it was astronomical. Then, the Rainbows decided to bestow themselves on Skinner Meadows a second time--2013 I think. Suffice it to say, the Rainbows have few friends among the locals in Beaverhead County, Montana.

Foy
 
Unfortunately I've heard this same story repeated over and over. Glad I've never run into them. I ran into the Mormons again on my Antelope Lake trip doing their handcart reenactment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers). I didn't closely inspect their campsite after they were done but from a distance I couldn't see any sign they had been there.
 
This was initial article I read and happened to know someone quoted (not a participant) and I contacted her... she pointed me to the article I first posted.
 

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  • The Rainbow Family gathering preaches peace but has escalated conflict - The Washington Post.pdf
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craig333 said:
Unfortunately I've heard this same story repeated over and over. Glad I've never run into them. I ran into the Mormons again on my Antelope Lake trip doing their handcart reenactment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers). I didn't closely inspect their campsite after they were done but from a distance I couldn't see any sign they had been there.
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Yeah, my nephew, his wife and 4 kids did a big stretch of the handcart reenactment through Wyoming into Utah several years ago. My Great-great grandfather came across the plains with Brigham Young from Nauvoo Illinois on the original trek west. I have the old family book on him: Thomas Grover. His old sharps rifle is on display in the basement museum of the old Fillmore Utah courthouse. Lots of stories.
 
While crossing Wyoming on I-80 yesterday and the day before, we saw Rainbows loaded up and heading East at what looked like around 35 mph in a caravan of old school buses and vans. In Evanston, WY we observed an obviously well-practiced panhandling routine at a Maverick fuel plaza/C-store. A group of 5 or 6 men and women pulled in driving an old van with 4 beat-up red plastic gasoline cans tied to a roof rack. They were empty cans and the individuals would walk over to the pump islands one at a time panhandling for gasoline while their marks were filling their own tanks. A little more direct than asking for $$, and clearly very successful--at least every second or third person they put the touch on would give them some fuel before putting the pump away. They'd rotate personnel and would wait for a whole new group of fuelers to arrive and walk a tour again.

Pretty odd-looking group, and easily the dirtiest we've seen outside of third world countries. Can't be much fun to live that way.

Foy
 
I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed but I still can't fathom how a person can walk away from their own trash and consider themselves a good person. Or how can they not see that 10,000 in one place does anything but destroy what they came to experience?
I won't even go on or I'll get more bummed.
 
buckland said:
I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed but I still can't fathom how a person can walk away from their own trash and consider themselves a good person. Or how can they not see that 10,000 in one place does anything but destroy what they came to experience?
I won't even go on or I'll get more bummed.
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Rob, they’re hedonists, they don’t care. They just want to do whatever they please, without respect to impacts to anyone or anything.
 
And as Foy related recently, they are especially joyful if you will fund their wants and desires.

Never give panhandlers money. If you think they need a meal, offer them one. Don't participate in their hijack of your life.
 
Wandering Sagebrush said:
Rob, they’re hedonists, they don’t care. They just want to do whatever they please, without respect to impacts to anyone or anything.
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I am not sure they are capable of considering the impact they have - perhaps a form of Dunning - Krueger? Lack of conscience? self control? ethics? (Or in other words - can you say sociopath?)

I had a "rainbow" housemate in the late "70s. He had all kinds of reasons for helping himself to the belongings of others like deciding that he was more entitled to my Svea backpack stove because he was a better friend to the person who gave the stove to me. I did not renew my lease because this guy would not move and would no longer pay for anything. I never understood why because I believe "reasons" need to make some kind of logical sense.
 
teledork said:
I am not sure they are capable of considering the impact they have - perhaps a form of Dunning - Krueger? Lack of conscience? self control? ethics? (Or in other words - can you say sociopath?)
Click to expand...
Our younger relative was a Rainbow for a few years. It took getting head lice to get him to cut his rasta hair (and then finding out his 'friends' would not associate with him anymore) and then getting busted for pot possession in Idaho, which a family retained lawyer barely got him out of a jail term, before he snapped to his senses. He won't even talk about that phase of his life. Is quite conservative nowadays.
 
A few years back we visited Summer Lake wildlife refuge in S E Oregon. Almost adjacent is a small store and roadside rest area.

For one reason or another the water was turned off at the rest area and toilets closed. The store was closed due to water shortage.

In the rest area I was surprised to see a late fifties man and family washing playa dust off their Sprinter based camper.

When I asked about his water access he explained how clever he was to bring a outside faucet key, hoses etc., so he can wash the dust off his Sprinter each year as they return to Seattle from Burning Man.

Steal a precious resource after playing in the desert.
 
ski3pin said:
A look from the inside..........

makes me wonder if a grazing permit should have been required.
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Not my cup of tea, but I guess it is good to live in a society where a tiny fraction can just be free to be silly and frivolous. I am reminded of what a friend of mine once said: "There is a leisure class at both ends of the economic spectrum." I regret they don't take more responsibility for the impact they have on forests and ecosystems. But they more or less are the definition of irresponsible.
 
Interesting re-do on the "Going Up The Country" segment of the Woodstock film by Canned Heat. Best resulting "Woodstock Sun Grope" dance moves I've seen since that time.

My own encounter with Rainbows departing the gathering in Wyoming on July 9 sticks with me as an example of contrast of the projected worldview vs. the reality on the ground. Whole lotta narcissism goin' round.

Foy
 
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