Ocala ‘Rainbow Gathering’ proves hippies no longer exist

I know this was posted in another thread.

I figured a thread that is dedicated to an '09 date and something that is wrapping up... would get buried and eventually culled.

This is a good article to honestly use, as a starting point, for what a person.... NOT A RAINBOW... thinks about the gathering.

They did not hear, read, or speculate about what a gathering is... they wrote what they experienced.

Now... I am an open critic to the fact that there are a lot of fucked up things about gatherings.

A lot of folk are.

BUT... most... refuse to accept or acknowledge the questionable things and even terrible things that have been happening.

It goes further than this article.

Rainbow is not changing and nor will it ever.

Only the attitudes of the people and the lack of realism of what is happening around them.

I mean, cmon, just imagine all of the things that do not get reported and are not talked about.

People are afraid of being called snitches and much worse... GETTING THE FUCK BEAT OUT OF THE FOR STANDING UP AND TELLING THE TRUTH!

The violence is one aspect that changes and always will come and go.

WE CAN NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S ACTIONS... no matter how much we try to diffuse what happens.

BAD SEEDS that do not care about rainbow, none the less, about people.... have made the gatherings their home.

I only see it getting worse when the economy gets worse.

Geez... we already have people trying to use the gathering as a political movement and to try to get people to participate in their causes.

Camps such as this new Rebel Camp I keep hearing about online.

That is never what I feel the ideology of rainbow is or will ever be about.

I am PROUD TO BE RAINBOW AND WILL NOT HIDE MY FACE.... only to cause chaos and create mayhem.

I know many of you will not either.

It is not our place and not the place within our tribes.

But... we can not control others actions.

In order to deal with any true problems that arise.... should we not first identify them in order to have somewhere to start... on showing people that what they are participating in is not meant to be?

I know that 90% of the people that I have met, that claim to be rainbow, will not even speak out against something they see happening... becasue they are scared of who is doing it.

Especially when it comes to the mass.. or gang mentality of others who have no problem with being violent, using violence, and harming them if they try to speak up against them.

They say that violence brings violence.

What causes the violence and helps maintain it at the gatherings?

Attitudes?

Ego?

Drugs?

Alcohol?

Need to control others?

Reputation?

Greed?

Lack of jobs or homes?


I mean, cmon, how could all of us people that have stood up and pointed out the bad things that have been happening in the past ten years..... always be told we are wrong and know nothing about what we speak?

I guess that reporter will be criticized and told how she knows nothing and did not see anything she claimed to.

My biggest concern is not how the public will think if rainbow.... not how these idiots are going to bring down the LEO on us... not how people will deny and continue to defend all of these people's actions.... BUT WHEN THE DAY COMES THAT I HEAR THAT SOME TRUE KIND RAINBOW GETS ARRESTED OR KILLED BECASUE OF THESE IDIOTS ACTIONS!



WE ALL KNOW THAT AN INDEPENDENT OBSERVER WOULD NEVER STATE THE TRUTH OF WHAT THE AVERAGE PERSON MIGHT SEE WHEN THEY ATTEND A GATHERING WITH AN OPEN MIND!


Now... of course.... many will say... WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO CHANGE IT!

I do not want to change rainbow.

I do not want to change people.

I would love to see more ppeople take the time to start looking around and just acknowledging the dirty little things... so that they can finally get addressed and maybe discussed in some serious councils.

Only then will others get the courage to speak up and stand up strong!

LEO are not stupid.

They know that there are two factions and who is who.

They would rather see rainbow gatherings againinstead of big travelling homeless forest squats.

How do you approach a subject with people that do not care?

What was that about Roosevelt and a big stick?

I have no problem with walking up to FS and asking them if they wanted to go for a thirty minute coffee break... while camp gets cleaned!


:cheers2:

Sorry for the interuption...... but wait.....









wait.....












WAIT.....











HERE YA GO!

WHAT?

MORE?

WOW!

Interesting!


->here<-

 

wow.... her "upside" was...

"There were some upsides of the excursion (I was able to trade “shiny rocks” for drugs,"


That sure sounds good.

The only really nice thing she has to say about the gathering is getting drugs and pancakes.

I can not help but to laugh at the sadness of this article!

 

turnup posted it in the ocala 09 thread already..

i like it here though,should stir up quite the conversation..

BTW,she musta been well liked if she traded shiny rocks for drugs (unless the shiny rocks were gold nuggets lol ) cause someone just posted in the other thread weed was going for 60 a gram..

ill say the same thing i said in the other thread,
I really dont see the big deal,she called it like she saw it. i dare say i have saw KATUAH say worse about ocala..

face it.ocala is a road dog party with a hint of rainbow,always has been.always will be..
nothing to see here folks,move along...

 

I know it's not very rainbow-like, but if I'm out in the woods with thousands of people from thousands of different backgrounds - I'm keeping a sharpened Rambo knife on me at all times. I would rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it. I ain't getting butt rapped in the woods by a crazy man named Buba. I'm all for peace and love, but if you push me far enough I'll cut ye' good!!!!

 

I see several sad parts to the article, first the changes in attitudes among those who go to Gatherings; second, the drug/rock exchange being viewed as the 'upside'; and third, the fact that the budding journalist was only able to view thru his/her own eyes....the paragraphs about what the 'real system' being better than the 'other system' got to me because yes, the 'real world' can be a great place for a kid if you have parents with enough money to feed you, enough money to help you thru college, and a clear enough head to give a child the love & support he or she needs to grow up healthy....lots of the kids who 'don't care about anything' didn't have those things. I could go on for days about the former lives of the kids who have chosen to call Rainbow Gatherings' Home...abuse, empty stomachs, parents with addictions, no hope, no love. The saddest part of all is that even with the bad things that happen at Rainbow Gatherings, this is probably the closest any of these kids have had to 'family', just like the inner city kids who join gangs for the sense of family.

 

That got me, too. Made me wonder if she was on a fact-finding mission, or if she was there 'cause nobody had anything in the dorms.....

 

I'm going to go ahead and take this article as a piece of satire, because I was out there for two weeks and I have no idea where this chick was.

There were no artists? I'm pretty sure I shared a tent with one.

 

Life as some people see it isn't always as others see it. Thats all I gotta say.
eace:

 

I still having difficulty letting this go. While my research on Allie (Alex-AHN-dra) Conti revealed a preppy little sophomore at UF who writes 10th grade stories fit for The National Enquirer. She's written reviews on Vid Games, CDs and done some interviews. Won $20 in a computer skills contest. Typical upper middle class college preppy...who thinks she can write.
Ok....but she fucking LIED!!!! She has to be lying. Her story can be picked apart like vultures on a carcass.
I sent the post I wrote on another thread (my critique) to the comments sections of her Rainbow article.
I also demanded an apology and the truth.
Bullshitting around the fire is one thing...bullshitting to condemn my family and have the gall to publish tripe as truth makes my blood boil!!!

Zen-notatthemoment

 

It just dawned on me today that our young Kerouac scholar went to the woods looking for Sal Paradise and found Dean Moriarity.....

She should read Karin's novel.

Damn it, so should I.....

 

Did Karin finally get her book in print? Last I knew, she was still working on it.

 

I'm quite certain I had heard her say it had been published, but I just looked on Amazon, and all I found was a used copy of Notes from the Road for (hold on to hour hat) $173.97 (+S&H), so perhaps I am mistaken....

 

[SIZE=+1]Travels and Poetry

Up until 1989, I'd lived my entire life in New York and California (mostly California). Over the years, I had meet many people who moved to California from other places and they always spoke about how different life in California is from where ever they came from. I began to get curious. So from 1989 to 1991, I lived in a 1971 Volkswagen camper van with my dog Ziffle (full name was Arnold Ziffle after the pig in Green Acres for you old TV buffs). We traveled the country, hitting forty states in two years, visiting museuems, meeting people and walking the land. I wrote a series of poems that became a chapbook called Notes From The Road.
Volkswagenism
Cult of do it yourselfers
Who cruise the blacktopped white striped
Highways like
East European Gypsies
In the eighteen hundreds ... Am I the only person in the Ozarks
Caressing myself with a
Cold wet washcloth
Before bedtime
At dusk
The wind galivants
Stirs up the souls of people long gone
... If you want the entire chapbook, send $5 to:
Karin Zirk/Notes From the Road
4629 Cass Street #188
San Diego CA 92109
and I'll mail you a copy.
[/SIZE]

 

that article has a bit of truth to it, but how sad that she didnt write about the good things she must have seen,. I don't think you can walk through the gathering and not see "artists" or truly intelligent beautiful people helping and loving each other. To thinkthat you can judge an entire groupby the actions of a few is sad. She obviously had her hopes of scoring free drugs, and seeing the typical swingback hippies from the 60's. And about no one wanting to share their cause or viewpoints,,,that's laughable. I don't think I've met many rainbows that givin the opportunity to speak to you won't go on in great length about all that. There is a lot of bad seeds ut there using the gatherings like a big road party, getting sloshed and being a bit too violent, but thats only a small percentage and can't expect not to see them there. It's not like we have people at the gate checking integrity when they come,, that would defeat the purpose of the gathering.

 

Unfortunately people don't leave their negative attitudes at the door,as I wish she did. Interesting article,but unfortunately not the whole Truth. Definitely should of spent more time there. She seem to be expecting something different. "Sorry" she didn't search more. Oh well,not the 1st. time and won't be the last time our Family got a bad rap. All I know I LOVE YOU my Dysfunctional/Functional Family.

 

Luvin you too Al !!!!

 

if this person is telling a true account of their experience i think that the only thing they are good at is having a bad time. And if they gave it a chance, maybe even come prepared, water, warm clothes, they would see the beautiful things about the Family that are clearly there. And i don't know where this person was if they saw no art....
the only thing good about that article was the word SUSHI......mmmmmmmmm..........sushi
lol

 

Ok... I know I don't check in here very often, and when I do I usually keep my replies to myself, BUT... this time I couldn't. I had to cut and paste beause it wouldn't let me quote it... but what really got me was Quote "Living in that system is a drain. Once you’re in it for more than a month, you can never assimilate yourself in what is called “the real world.” Once you have nothing but shiny rocks and nothing more than an elementary school education, you’re pretty much fucked." End quote.
So what really gets me is, I may get called a yuppie once in a while, but I've been going to gatherings since Ocala '01. I'm not at every gathering, but I go when my IRL permits. I do it for just the reasons that so many others have posted. It's my vacation time. It's my religion. it's a break from consumerism, and the capitolistic society that is my reality. But I also did my time so to speak. I got ditched in Ocala, abandoned in Colorado for a bit.. alot of good and bad stuff has happened to me. Can't have one without the other. I've gone months and months w/o going back to babylon. Yup, I have a lot of shiny rocks, but my husband and I also have a house, and I'm a student, he's planning on going back next year. I think I manage to assimilate myself into "the real world" perfectly well... other than the few odd looks I get from my ever-changing hair color...lol
But my point is, when someone who is very rooted in babylon comes into the woods, their minds are usually not as open as us rainbows. I've been at a few regionals that I didn't feel too welcome at too. Maybe that chick just needs to loosen up a little, and find a different camp to explore.

 

Well, I'm usually mistrustful of the idea that it's either this or it's that rather than something like a continuum (sometimes looping around) with most people somewhere and sometimes moving along the line. It was kind of immature writing and thinking in other respects as well: the writer went to one place for a few hours and discovered that a whole population or culture NO LONGER EXISTS! Ay Caramba!

It's true that bad things happen - in families, in churches, among hippies, in monastaries, in bands and orchestras, among farmers, on the reservation ... and I don't doubt that lost or unsavory people are drawn to unstructured settings. My guess is that gatherings are like other places: the more people take responsibility for themselves and the people around them, the better the place will be. I am my brother's keeper.