The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'impressionistic rainbow people holding hands in a large circle in a meadow filled with flowers.'
As a kid, all I wanted was to go and live in some wild forest when I grew up. By the time I was 18, I realized that this was impossible, because all land was owned, and we were not free to exist in this country unless we were paying someone. This didn't make any sense at all to me, but everyone else treated me like I was crazy for thinking we had a right to exist.
As it turned out, society's elimination of our right to exist as part of the natural world was controversial hundreds of years ago. In Thomas Paine's 1795 tract Agrarian Justice, the loss of our natural right to live freely off of the land was used as the rational basis for providing every member of society with a basic income sufficient to make up for society's theft of our most basic right.
Today in the US, we don't have a right to exist at all. The Supreme Court recently ruled that it's not unconstitutional for cities to criminalize homeless people sleeping in public. Obviously no one likes homeless encampments. But outlawing them doesn't do a thing to reduce homelessness. And even the poorest people have a right to exist, no matter what the law says.
Every summer since 1972, members of the informal group of camping enthusiasts known as the Rainbow Family have gathered together on public lands. The focal point of these gatherings is a prayer for peace that takes place on July 4th. On the morning of the 4th, thousands of gatherers observe silence until noon, at which point everybody assembles in a meadow to hold hands in a giant circle and pray together.
The Rainbow Family is totally decentralized and noncommercial. Gatherers show up as individuals endeavoring to exercise their Constitutionally protected rights to free assembly and free expression. Since no one person can take responsibility for the actions of another, no one signs the permits the Forest Service typically requires for groups of 75 or more. Instead, at every major gathering, Rainbows work with the Forest Service and sometimes other stakeholders to create and voluntarily adopt an operating plan that protects people and natural resources without impinging on the constitutional rights of gatherers.
Rainbow gatherings are the only events I'm aware of where large numbers of people actually exercise their rights to assemble and express themselves in a meaningful way. And now, for the first time ever, the government has fully canceled the big annual gathering. From an LA Times article about it:
The U.S. Forest Service ordered hundreds of people gathered for a "Rainbow Family" celebration at an unsanctioned camp to vacate the Plumas National Forest within 48 hours or face fines or jail time. The agency issued the order Wednesday to the more than 500 members of the Rainbow Family, known as the "largest non-organization of non-members in the world." The group doesn't have and hasn't applied for a special use permit required for any event with 75 or more people, the agency said. If they refuse to leave their camp, located about 5 miles north of Antelope Lake Recreation Area, within 48 hours of the order, they could face up to $5,000 in fines or up to six months in jail.
The most common criticisms of rainbow gatherings are baseless. The Forest Service always lies and says that gatherers don't clean up after themselves, yet I've been to gatherings with over 20k people in attendance and participated in the meticulous cleanup and re-wilding of the site that always takes place. Compacted ground is broken up and reseeded with native plants. Even the tiniest bits of trash are picked up. Within a year, it's barely noticeable that anything happened. Any major music festival has 1000X more of an environmental impact.
Critics also point to the widespread use of illegal drugs at gatherings. And there are many gatherers who consume drugs. But again, this issue is 1000X worse at any major music festival. And alcohol use is highly discouraged outside of a designated A-Camp, so encountering the drunken at a gathering is unusual. In fact, large swaths of every gathering are set up for families and those committed to sobriety. In my own life, I credit rainbow with helping put me on a path that led to my giving up alcohol many years ago, which is a decision that I've never regretted.
Other criticisms of gatherings can't be so easily dismissed. Some Native people object to the whole idea of hippies camping out in the woods, considering anything like that to be cultural appropriation. While these general objections to the whole thing strike me as unreasonable and reactionary, there have been occasions when gatherers have done fake Native ceremonies or otherwise engaged in more clear cut cultural appropriation.
There is also the issue of Rainbow getting further and further from the spirit in which it was created. I stopped going to the big annual gathering in 2006 after seeing a group of gatherers selling plastic cups of keg beer for $5 each. And the gatherings I've been to since seem less and less about peace and love every year, as hippie culture increasingly gives way to gutter punk culture.
Regardless of these issues, the government's destruction of this year's annual gathering is a national tragedy. It signals the final end of freedom in this country, with the Bill of Rights now virtually meaningless in the eyes of the people in charge. Are we free to assemble in public spaces? Are we free to express ourselves in these spaces? I would argue that we still are, but we may need to assert these rights more forcefully, as the powers that be have completely abandoned their obligation to protect these rights.
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