According to the Missoula Police Department, peace and love are extremist views, and promoting these ideas could be a possible sign of terrorist activity.
The police department received a Department of Homeland Security grant of $254,930 last week, to assist them in fighting the terrorist threat. That threat was apparently posed by “the Rainbow Family,” a large hippy gathering that promotes peace and love.
In the application documents where the agency requested the grant, the Rainbow Family was listed as an “extremist organization” that requires constant surveillance.
Police Chief Scott Hoffman said that the department needed a “mobile command unit” to deal with the Rainbow Family threat.
“It’s a mobile command unit. It’s just like a motor home with communications and computers and radios and things like that. I don’t know what the hazards of the Rainbow people are,” Hoffman said.
After the story went public, representatives from the police department have played damage control with the media, claiming that the operation is only to help with cleaning up and keeping the area safe.
When reporters with the Missoulian called the police department for a comment, they were told by Missoula Police Lt. Scott Brodie that the mobile command unit would be primarily for the clean up effort.
“When they have their gatherings, they historically have created a mess that needs to be cleaned up. The command center could just coordinate and speed things up, get it done faster. It’s a coordination tool is what it is,” Brodie said.
It becomes apparent how ridiculous the accusations of “extremism” are when doing some research into what the Rainbow Family stands for. They are a decentralized, loose-knit group of people who want to promote ideas of peace, freedom, equality, and love.
The group takes their name from the ancient Native American proverb that says “When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, creeds, and who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again. They will be known as the warriors of the rainbow.“
Back in 2013, the U.S. Forest Service spent over $500,000 in efforts to police the event and only made two arrests. Otherwise, there were no issues or problems at the event.
This is content that I created for a website that I write for called The Free Thought Project:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/hippy-rainbow-gathering-labeled-terrorists-watched-department-homeland-security/
(sources for article are hyperlinked at the site above)
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John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. John is currently battling cancer , and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments consider subscribing to his podcast to support at https://www.patreon.com/johnvibes
It's pretty mind-blowing the amount of man-power & fire-power they always have at the gathering. Most of it is just used to steal cannabis & give extortion papers to folks who are entering the gathering, and when there is violence or any other actual crime, it's generally dealt with by us, without the LEOs even knowing about it.
At this year's gathering in Oregon, they shot somebody's dog, saying that it was attacking them... but the gunshot wound was in the back/side of the head. Must've been some crazy attack.
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@johnvibes I cannot tell if some of your readers are ignorant or trying to be funny. I have been going to the Rainbow Gathering for many years now and I think it's very sad that some would jump to conclusions based on so little experience. What the Rainbow Gathering represents is amazing and it would behoove the rest who have replied here to go look up an unbiased history of the gathering. Any time something great and "of the light" happens it draws darkness to it too. Just because there are theives and muggers in NYC does not mean NYC is a bad place. Just because some asshole wearing a Steemit t-shirt acts like a jerk does not mean all Steemians are assholes. At least I hope not.
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Jared Howe is an edgelord and a terrible human being. I blocked him over a year ago on Facebook and just muted him on here so I dont have to deal with his trolling
valued customer is a good poster here...he must have just had a bad experience, and that is understandable. Ive been in the festie circuit for years, and i threw raves of my own for nearly a decade, and as much love as there is in this scene, there is also a negative element that rubs people the wrong way...but yes we should absolutely judge peple as individuals and not as a collective..and Im sure he would be willing to give the rainbow people like you and me a chance
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Thank you.
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Much of what I heard about Rainbow folk sounded great. Then I met some.
That completely changed my opinion. I'll not go into details, but I do not believe any longer in the rhetoric I heard describing them. My experience was that neither peace, love, nor natural beauty were values this group actually effects.
Sadly so. This world very much needs those values to be expressed in action, rather than empty words.
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It takes every color to make a rainbow. Do not judge all rainbow by the few you met.
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Yeah it is important to judge individuals and individuals, and not by their collective. There are some irresponsible rainbow people out there, but my experience has been similar to any other group, some are good and some are bad
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Other than @johnvibes and yourself, they were the only ones I have interacted with.
I will not color my views of either of you by what I have seen from others, as I have not had reason to.
I am sure you can understand how experience, being our only teacher, teaches us.
Thanks!
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If they are extremists then I am the devil himself... ;)
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Love the the picture of the gathering. I don't really understand what that means: "...mess that needs to be cleaned up."
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Garbage. A lot of garbage left at the campsite.
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Rarely does that actually happen. Most years the Forest Service's reports talk about how the site is the cleanest they've ever seen it, as we not only clean up after ourselves, but the hunters/tourists/drunks who are usually out trashing the forests. The average national gathering ends with dozens of people staying on-site for months cleaning up.
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I wasn't making an accusation. I was clarifying the one @johano inquired about.
I keep a clean camp myself.
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I didn't necessarily think you were accusing anyone of it, I just wanted to give some more context for it as well.
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I admit that the quality of discourse from folks claiming affiliation with Rainbow far exceeds my prior expectations.
Perhaps I won't cross the street to avoid the next ones I see =p
Thanks!
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Beautiful
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Thank you for Using #promo-steem tag, Promote steemit by inviting your friends and your family!
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Seems appropriate to me. Communists ARE terrorists, and "peace and love" are usually just euphemisms for socializing the costs of one's own degeneracy. They should be deported.
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Haha, says the guy who's most recent post is promoting the alt-right.
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