Hare Krishna leader Swami Bhaktipada is dead

... and I imagine we will be hearing some scary stuff now. It was already plenty scary while he was alive!

Swami Bhaktipada, Ex-Hare Krishna Leader, Dies at 74
By MARGALIT FOX, New York Times
Published: October 24, 2011

Swami Bhaktipada, a former leader of the American Hare Krishna movement who built a sprawling golden paradise for his followers in the hills of Appalachia but who later pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges that included conspiracy to commit the murders-for-hire of two devotees, died on Monday in a hospital near Mumbai, India. He was 74.

The cause was kidney failure, his brother, Gerald Ham, said.

Mr. Bhaktipada, who was released from prison in 2004 after serving eight years of a 12-year sentence, moved to India in 2008.

The son of a Baptist preacher, Mr. Bhaktipada was one of the first Hare Krishna disciples in the United States. He founded, in 1968, what became the largest Hare Krishna community in the country and presided over it until 1994, despite having been excommunicated by the movement’s governing body.

The community he built, New Vrindaban, is nestled in the hills near Moundsville, W.Va., about 70 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. Its conspicuous centerpiece is the Palace of Gold, an Eastern-inspired riot of gold-leafed domes, stained-glass windows, crystal chandeliers, mirrored ceilings, inlaid marble floors, sweeping murals, silk brocade hangings, carved teak pillars and ornate statuary.

New Vrindaban eventually comprised more than 4,000 acres — a “spiritual Disneyland,” its leaders often called it — with a live elephant, terraced gardens, a swan boat and bubbling fountains. A major tourist attraction, it drew hundreds of thousands of visitors in its heyday, in the early 1980s, and substantial annual revenue from ticket sales.

The baroque frenzy of the place stands in vivid contrast to the founding tenets of the Hare Krishna movement. Rooted in ancient Hindu scripture, the movement was begun in New York in the mid-1960s by an Indian immigrant, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. It advocates a spiritual life centered on truth, simplicity and abstinence from drugs, alcohol and extramarital sex.

But by the mid-1980s, New Vrindaban had become the target of local, state and federal investigations that concerned, among other things, the sexual abuse of children by staff members at its school and the murders of two devotees.

The resulting federal charges against Mr. Bhaktipada, a senior spiritual leader of the movement, and the ensuing international publicity did much to contravene the public image of the gentle, saffron-robed acolytes who had long been familiar presences in American airports.

Scandalmongers among you will enjoy the true crime account titled Monkey On a Stick: Murder, Madness and the Hare Krishnas, which I think is out of print in paperback? Check your local library, the true crime section, helpfully numbered "364" in the Dewey decimal system. (For us rushed, busy scandalmongers who have no time to browse, it's easy to just run to the 364s, grab one, and run out. Yes, I HAVE.)

Let's see, can I think of anything nice to say about the Hare Krishnas? I can't think of anything nice to say about Bhaktipada.

Okay, a few things:

The West Virginia Hare Krishnas were very kind to the Rainbow Family (apparently some crossover membership) when they had the Gathering of the Tribes in WV, I think in 1979 or 1980? (corrections and/or clarifications welcome)

Also, the fruit crepes they made at their restaurants and missions were really good. When we slept overnight in Central Park during the Democratic National Convention, they came out and gave us free fruit crepes. Wasn't that nice? I recall that the strawberry/blueberry ones were especially fabulous.

Once upon a time in a galaxy called the 70s, a dancing Hare Krishna* --possibly sensing my high spiritual nature (joke)-- stopped dancing, approached me smiling beatifically, and simultaneously pulled out a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, when I was about 18 or 19. "Do you like George Harrison?" he asked me, as I stared at that painted stripe down his face. (Will somebody please tell me what that IS and why they wear it?)

"I LOVE George!" I replied, amazed that he had correctly guessed my favorite Beatle.

Then he showed me "George's favorite book" --the Bhagavad Gita, which for some reason was titled Bhagavad Gita As It Is. He offered it to me for a fee. I have no money, I said, and must have looked either convincingly-poor or cute, since he went ahead and gave it to me. He made me promise to read it; I solemnly promised. I had actually just intended to look at the pictures (see link), which were bloody AWESOME. I had never seen Indian art before, and certainly, never a blue-colored God, which made sense to me... I mean, if he's in the sky, right?

Not only did I read it, I took notes in the margins.

I regret to say I eventually lost my Hare Krishna-published version (bankrolled by George, and it said so right inside!), which was a lovely, large, multicolored hardcover volume, as impressive as any Bible. There were photos of various Swamis and gurus and ashrams in it and I was utterly fascinated. I studied it extensively. When I lost it, I replaced it with a more dignified, nicely-bound Bhagavad Gita, but it isn't nearly as big, pretty or flashy as the one paid for by Fab Four money.

At yard sales and used bookstores, I nose around and sometimes find other ancient holy books re-published by ISKCON, and consequently, I own several. One of these, The Path to Perfection by founder Swami Prabhupada, was also scribbled in quite a lot.

So at least they did a couple of good things.

I realize that legally, child abuse pales next to murder-for-hire (which grabbed all the headlines), but the Hare Krishna child abuse allegations were as extensive as the Catholic abuse scandal, at the time. Interestingly, the Catholic Church dug their heels in, but the Hare Krishnas, on this subject (if not others), came clean:

Three years later, [Texas lawyer Windle Turley] followed up with a $400 million lawsuit against the International Society for Krishna Consciousness [ISKCON], a Hindu missionary sect popularly known as the Hare Krishnas.

Both the Krishnas and the Catholics warned that Turley's lawsuits would drive them into bankruptcy, hurting innocent Hindus and the faithful people in the pews.

But that's not what happened -- at least for the Catholics. And the moral of the story may turn out to be that honesty may not be the best policy.

Talk to Hare Krishna spokesman Anantanda Dasa and he'll tell you that his movement did exactly what many have said the Catholic bishops should have done 15 years ago.

Long before Turley's lawsuit was filed, the Krishnas admitted they had a history of molestation and other physical abuse in their religious boarding schools, called gurukalas.

They set up an office of child protection and hired an outside investigator to study the treatment of children in this hippie-era sect, which became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for its chanting Western converts wearing saffron robes.

That report was devastating, but the Hare Krishnas published it anyway. And it was like handing Windle Turley a lawsuit on a silver collection platter.

The Krishna case, which is still in the courts, alleges that dozens of children of Hare Krishna members were abused in the 1970s at church boarding schools in Texas, West Virginia and New York.

E. Burke Rochford, a professor of sociology and religion at Middlebury College in Vermont, was the sympathetic scholar hired by the Krishnas to investigate the allegations of abuse.

His damning report, however, provided lots of material for Turley's suit as well as for others who accuse the Hare Krishnas of being an abusive and exploitive cult.

The shit first hit the fan in 2000, when there was an ABC 20/20 report about ISKCON's gurukula (religious school) system. (Transcript here.) It was ugly, indeed.

It was all downhill from there. According to news accounts, the once-robust cult has only 200 residents left.

And I hope they all leave.


*I keep wanting to say this was near Central Park in New York, since I did see them happily gyrating there all through the 70s. Then again, I might be confusing my memory with the scene in Hannah and Her Sisters, wherein Woody Allen, on a spiritual quest, is similarly given his free copy in Central Park. Woody then says to himself/us:

Who are you kidding? You're gonna be a Krishna? You're gonna shave your head and dance around at airports? You'd look like Jerry Lewis!

Odds and Sods - Rightwing Deadheads Revisited

Yes, I stole that title from Highway 61 Revisited.

In this fascinating, educational thread from three years ago, Daisy is enlightened and meets up with her very first Rightwing Deadheads. Granted, I have met all kinds of Deadheads with all kinds of opinions, but none who actually categorized themselves as consciously right-wing. Thus, I was skeptical. Notice, Ann Coulter is mentioned on the thread.

Riiiight, Ann Coulter.

I put that little piece of info on my (already overloaded) back burner, and did not remember it until flipping channels a few weeks ago and landing on C-Span's THREE HOUR INTERVIEW (!) with Coulter. (Note to C-Span: She isn't Harold Bloom you know.) I guess since Ishmael Reed recently fulminated for three hours, equal time for the Right. (Which annoyed me considerably, since Reed is ostensibly of the Left and yet was careful to trash feminism and gay rights for a sizeable portion of his allotted time.) The interviewer presented a list of reporters "allowed to interview Coulter in the future"--which contained both liberal and conservative names. Explanation? Coulter humorously replied that these were the reporters who "actually brought tape recorders and transcribed what I said from the tape." Apparently, legions of reporters have put all sorts of words in her mouth she didn't say. (Again, I took that into account as a future radio commentator; I'm sure it's going to happen to me, too... since it already happens here in Blogdonia.)

Interestingly, Coulter's list included a reporter from JamBands.com.

What?

Oh, dear Lord.

So, it's true. Rightwing Deadheads. Like, at the very TOP. Not just grunts in the mailroom of the Weekly Standard, but Deadheads among the theorists (I use the term loosely) and popular media personalities themselves. I suddenly recalled when a Deadhead friend claimed he had a photo of Ann Coulter from an old east coast show, and threatened to bring it to work and SHOW ME. He never remembered to bring it (these are Deadheads we are talking about) and so I never had to face the music: that he had a shot of Ann in the front row. NOOOooooOOO, say it isn't so.

Ann reckons she has attended at least 67 shows, which puts her in a rarefied class. Holy shit, an advanced case, and she never caught liberal cooties from Deadheads? How did she manage that? Ann even flew out to attend Jerry's memorial in Golden Gate park. Like I say, an advanced case. Coulter also claims she never used drugs at a Dead show, which I am not sure I believe. Of course, she really didn't have to, since even the "passive" pot smoke at Dead shows could slay an elephant; she does mention the clouds of smoke, and jokes about it. I think Ann may have enjoyed her passive high and it might account for some of the starry-eyed bullshit she offers in the interview, which is from back in 2006. (Two years before "Deadheads for Obama"--and I wonder how she felt about THAT?)

Here is an example of the possibly passive-marijuana-smoke-induced, starry-eyed bullshit:

Moreover, I really like Deadheads and the whole Dead concert scene: the tailgating, the tie-dye uniforms, the camaraderie, it was like NASCAR for potheads. You always felt like you were with family at a Dead show-- a rather odd, psychedelic family that sometimes lived in a VW bus and sold frightening looking “veggie burritos.” But whatever their myriad interests, clothing choices, and interest in illicit drugs, true Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren’t: unique, free-thinking, open, kind, and interested in different ideas. Also, excellent dancers! Watching a Deadhead dance is truly something to behold.

Ann doesn't seem to realize that 90% of the Deadheads she has met are liberals, just not very articulate ones... I ask you, does Coulter's description (in the paragraph above) sound like a description of cultural liberals or cultural conservatives?

Many Deadheads shun politics (which we might say is an anarchist belief, possibly the long-term influence of the Rainbow Family, which had a lot of Deadhead-crossover membership); their political ideas are inchoate and unformed ... and many prefer that they stay that way. Just as Deadhead religion is all over the lot and the woo is fairly thick, Deadhead revolutionary ideas tend to be gonzo, unworkable, back-to-the-land stuff, like the Diggers specialized in. (Note: I am talking about the pre-1987 era, after which the Dead went "mainstream" and the general "Deadhead" term tended to lose its former countercultural meaning.) The Deadheads Ann admires put collectivism into practice, which is liberalism personified. But to maintain her useful fiction that liberals are "Godless" (the name of her book) -- she has to separate the lovable dancing bears of her past from those nasty liberals who have ruined the country.

(sigh)

~*~

And I got more links, too.

A huge and shocking baby-selling scandal has rocked the surrogate world, and yet the leaders in the field (the reproductive-pimps making all of the money off of women's uteri) still don't support additional legal controls on surrogacy. (It is particularly notable that this scandal INVOLVES one of the so-called respectable leaders in the surrogacy business.)

Short version: They make me sick.

~*~

Anonymous plays hardball with BART, posting naked photos of San Francisco BART spokesman Linton Johnson all over the net, as part of their ongoing protests. Their statement reads: "If you are going to be a dick to the public, then I'm sure you don't mind showing your dick to the public."

Daisy applauds and laughs: The Yippies would be so proud of yall.

~*~

At left: My friend Ginger Wilson sings one of my favorite songs (with the Shannon Hoover Band) at the Reedy River Concert Series on Wednesday night: "I put a spell on you"--yeah! It was a great night and I had a lot of fun, meeting all kinds of unexpected old friends at the show. (More photos here.)

As I have said so many times, if I ever move away from Greenville, I certainly WILL miss knowing everyone in town!

~*~

Rick Perry made money off of porn! Woooo! Wonder what his new Dominionist (and K Street) friends will think of that?

Movie Gallery used to be across the street from here, and was well-known for its popular "back room"; at my old video-store job, I worked with several Movie Gallery-refugees, and quickly learned the score. I find it hard (excuse expression) to believe Rick Perry didn't have a clue.

~*~

Marion writes of the death of Canadian politician Jack Layton:

To me, he was like a Terrier or a Bulldog, worrying and tearing at the Conservatives without restraint. With a four year term of a majority Conservative government, I felt so much better in knowing Jack Layton was the leader of the Opposition. I felt, if anyone could, he was the one who would hold the Conservatives to account.

Rest in peace, Mr Layton... we need more like you throughout the world!

~*~

How a Radical Leftist Became the FBI's BFF (Mother Jones)

Boy Scouts of America removed mother from troop after discovering she is a lesbian (Think Progress)

Katha Politt: Michele Bachmann, Wife in Chief? (The Nation)

Nice title, but I am partial to STEPFORD Wife in Chief... (mean giggle)

Ben Masel 1954-2011

Lots of other people have memorialized Ben Masel, most of them far better writers than I am. But I was unsatisfied. There is a word missing in these obituaries, from Daily Kos, to NORML, to TalkLeft and everyone in between.

That word is YIPPIE.

Ben was a YIPPIE.

Why are the lefty honchos avoiding the word in the obits? Because the "serious" leftists never liked us, that's why. But they loved Ben, who was extremely lovable. So, they avoid the word. It's their way of being polite.

Ben would say, hey, you gonna mention that I was a Yippie?

I can hear him now. And my reply to him, is to write this.

He sure was. He was THE Yippie.

~*~

At times like this, I wish I had a scanner, and I wish I was more organized. Somewhere in all the detritus, I have several photos of Ben, including one of us together on a skanky old couch, looking particularly wide-eyed and paranoid. This photo has someone's thumb in the corner of it, and I remember: peyote and lots of it. We are looking at the camera, but not really. I was wearing a Jeff Beck t-shirt, and Ben is holding a cigarette. (Now that we know his cause of death was lung cancer, I dearly wish he wasn't holding it.)

Ben looked exactly like Cat Stevens when he was young, and I had a ferocious crush on him. He was witty as the dickens, and I loved provoking him to see what kinds of funny things he would say.

I have a couple of Ben-stories to add to the collection.

The first one involves an endless journey, and I am not quite sure where it began and ended, but it took us through most of the Midwest, Madison and on into the Dakotas, to the Black Hills Alliance Survival Gathering in 1979. I do remember a van breaking down in the dead of night, leaving us stranded in what seemed like a vacant moonscape, as we had just left the Badlands. We walked or hitchhiked (a little of both?) to the rest area, which was designed as a giant cement teepee, appearing quite formidable from a distance.

After using the restroom, I come out of the giant cement teepee, and some clean-cut fellow approaches me out of nowhere. "Hey!" says this strange person good-naturedly, "Ben is already in the van!" The van? Which van? And so I follow the stranger to a gleaming new van with Missouri plates, where Ben is already sitting in the passenger seat, holding forth, talking to the other passengers about the Black Hills Alliance.

Okay, what!? Who are these people?

So, I go ahead and get in (glad they weren't serial killers or anything), and it comes together: these are friends of Ben's. Well, of course they are. But... damn, in the middle of South Dakota? He has friends at a rest stop in the middle of South Dakota????!!!

Yes, he did. Ben had friends everywhere, all over the place. When I told other Yippies this story, they just shrugged: "Ben knows everybody." And I think of all the other people I've known who supposedly "knew everybody"--and it usually meant they only knew a lot of people. I can't imagine them getting picked up by strangers at a rest stop in God-knows-where.

But Ben knew everybody. I mean, he really did.

~*~

Unfortunately, my next story is somewhat garbled, since the two principals are no longer with us.

I can't remember who was in jail, Steve Conliff or Ben. This was during the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976, and one of the two (often known as the Glimmer Twins in Yippie parlance) was in jail for some silly traffic violation (and probable possession of marijuana) in Raytown, Missouri. If memory serves, it was Ben who was in jail, while Conliff took to local talk radio to threaten to bring a thousand Yippies to Raytown, to spring Ben. (Of course, there were never "a thousand Yippies"--which was the inside joke.)

"We aren't gonna let a punk town like Raytown get away with this!" Conliff bellowed over the airwaves.

And so, magically, the authorities let Ben go. That afternoon. And they specifically told him to tell his friend on the radio: "This is not a PUNK town!"

Ben assured them he would pass the word along. He then repeated the charge later that night to a reporter for the Kansas City Star: "I got busted last night in some punk town called RAYTOWN!" he pointedly said.

They quoted him, too.

~*~

A young photo of Ben; I told you he looked just like Cat Stevens!



And finally, THIS colorful and insane event, the Republican National Convention in 1980 in Detroit, wherein Ben was busted and Conliff miraculously avoided detection by shaving his head.

In the Detroit courtroom where about a dozen Yippies were arraigned, one Yippie was given 10 days for contempt of court. Ben spoke up: "Your honor, you have to give me 20 days, because I have twice as much contempt for your court as she has!"

They obliged.

Ben went to jail a lot, and sued them all later for arresting him. He won, too, frequently joking that it was a good living if you could wait forever to get paid.

~*~

This is the obit that gets quoted here on DEAD AIR, since it dares to use the dreaded word YIPPIE:

"Ben knew the laws better than the police did," explained his longtime friend Amy Gros-Louis, echoing a sentiment shared by judges, lawyers and the many police officers who came to regard Masel with a mix of frustration, awe and, eventually, respect.

So it was with Masel, whose death Saturday at age 56 robbed Madison, Wisconsin and the United States of one of the truest champions of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the founding faith that the freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights are not just ideals; they are practical tools to be used on a daily basis to challenge the powerful, to offend the elites, to tip the balance toward some rough equivalent of justice.

These commitments made Masel a supreme annoyance to prickly policemen, prying prosecutors and pretenders to the presidency. Before he reached the age of 18, Masel made it onto the list of Nixon White House enemies, and he would later earn national headlines for mocking segregationist George Wallace and spitting at conservative Democrat Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who earned the wrath of Masel and his Yippie compatriots for his steady service to the military-industrial complex.

In later years, the exuberant agitator would express a measure of remorse for some of the more extreme acts of his youth. But he never apologized for exercising every right afforded a citizen.

No one pushed harder against the limits on dissent in what was supposed to be a free society. That pushing earned him dozens of court dates. But Bennett Masel, the New Jersey native who came to Madison as a UW undergrad and remained to become a local icon, was never merely a provocateur. He was, for all the theatrics, a serious believer in a left-libertarian analysis of the individual liberty that lawyers and judges came to understand as a credible extension of the thinking of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, the longest-serving justice on the high court and a hero to 1970s radicals such as Masel.

Goodbye Ben, and thank you for teaching me to be a Yippie. It was the major lesson in civil disobedience that I never forgot.

~*~

More:

Ben Masel, an activist's activist

Activists and Visionarys

Ben Masel - Professional Activist

Rainbow Tribe attacked at annual Gathering of the Tribes

My Deadhead comrades report that there was a violent event this year at the Rainbow Gathering (which the Yippies used to lovingly call "The Rainbozo"), if you can believe it. The first Gathering (also known informally as the "gathering of the tribes") was in 1972, and has been held annually ever since during the first week of July, on National Forest land. There are also other Rainbow Gatherings on other continents, but I don't know much about those.

I have investigated, and apparently, this IS true. (((EYES BUG OUT, AS IN OLD TEX AVERY CARTOONS: BOINN--NNN-GGGG-GGGGG!))) For those of us who remember The Rainbozo as one of the most mellow, peaceful, accepting places on earth, this is something of a shock.

The idea of violence invading the Gathering is upsetting enough to cause actual disorientation.

It's interesting that my own experience with The Rainbozo was in West Virginia, and everyone warned us that the local rednecks would not countenance naked hippies dropping acid in the woods. That turned out to be totally untrue; nobody cared, or if they did, not enough to make trouble. This pattern would be re-enacted over and over again, as various participants in places like Arkansas and North Carolina were warned that Dangerous Rednecks Hate the Hippies, and they will attack. To their credit, the Rainbow Family always said nonsense--we welcome the locals! We LOVE YOU! PEACE AND LOVE! COME ONE, COME ALL!

Every Gathering had funny stories about locals who came to jeer at the hippies and, unprepared for the unconditional love (much less the powerful acid), "went native" and ended up joining the Rainbow Family for keeps.

I don't remember any problems ever reported at previous Gatherings, although readers can certainly correct me if they know of any other incidents I may have missed. (But Wyoming??? I just want to stop and draw everyone's attention to that word: WYOMING!!!! It didn't happen in the south!)

Accounts are just now trickling in, since the Gathering just ended, and my Deadhead spies do not write the most coherent emails, particularly after tripping in the woods for a week, but hey. All of the accounts sound more or less the same: law enforcement decided to go roust the Gathering, at long last. What didn't even happen in 1972, has happened now, in 2008.

My investigation turned up the usual "warnings" issued before the Gathering, that the Rainbow Family has heard since its inception. From Rivertonradio.com, this story dated June 28:

Federal officials began arriving in Riverton earlier this month to prepare for the arrival of the group, which calls itself the Rainbow Family of Living Light.

Anywhere between several hundred to a few thousand members of the group are expected, and their arrival has already drawn the ire of some locals. Civilians and councilmembers alike are concerned over rumors and speculation which seem to follow the group around the country.

To help aleviate fears, the Rainbow Family participated in a town hall meeting in Pinedale last week, saying they were a "people of peace," and asking for a moment of silence.

Still, local law enforcement in Green River has advised the public not to pick up hitchhikers as members of the group begin to arrive in the area for the gathering, which is scheduled to begin in full July 1. Residents who are disturbed by the arrival of the group have cited reports of fires and crime which have arisen in the last week near the area where members of the Rainbow Family have already assembled to justify concerns.

Rescue searchers found the pickup of missing 24-year-old Garrett Bardin this week in the Big Sandy area of Pinedale, not far from where the Rainbow Family has been gathering in recent weeks for its event.

On Monday, a wildfire was extinguished in Lander after it had burned a quarter of an acre in the same area where residents had complained about the behavior of some of the group's members.

Some of the rumors about the clan may not be entirely unfounded. In February, officials in Florida relocated the group as they hosting a similar meeting at the Ocala National Forest near Orlando. The group was forced out, and officials cited some members for minor violence, drug use, and violation of federal land permits.

Earlier this month, the Boy Scouts of America conceded that the arrival of the Rainbow Family had forced them to reschedule a planned forest restoration project.

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso has written a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, complaining the group has not respected the process of reserving federal land.

"The Rainbow Family Gathering displaced the Boy Scouts of America who had planned to do an ecological project," wrote Barrasso, as reported by the Casper Star Tribune on Friday. "In addition, livestock permittees, recreationists, cabin owners and lodge visitors are impacted by this gathering. All of these users have completed the appropriate permit process and worked with the agency to properly plan their activities."

The group's website stresses that this year's gathering will be peaceful, and says the group "is an international loose affiliation of individuals who have a common goal of trying to achieve peace and love on Earth."

God forbid, you displace the BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA!!!!

And hey! Happy 4th of July to you too!

Five arrested in Rainbow Family clash with feds

By BEN NEARY – July 4, 2008

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — About 400 members of the Rainbow Family threw rocks and sticks at 10 federal officers as they tried to arrest a member of the group, the U.S. Forest Service said Friday.

Five members of the group were arrested and one officer was slightly injured. A government vehicle was also damaged.

About 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family are camping this year on Forest Service land near Big Piney. The Rainbow Family is a loose affiliation of eccentrics, young people and hippie types who choose a forest each year in which hold a weeklong national gathering.

Ten Forest Service officers were patrolling the main meadow of the Rainbow Family's camping area Thursday night and apprehended one person described as being uncooperative, Rita Vollmer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, said in a statement Friday.

"Officers began to leave the gathering site with the subject and were circled by more Rainbow participants that began to physically interfere," Vollmer said.

About 400 Rainbows surrounded the officers trying to leave, she said.

"The mob began to advance, throwing sticks and rocks at the officers," Vollmer said.

State troopers have also arrested two people this week on felony drug charges for allegedly possessing 96 hits of LSD, said Sgt. Stephen Townsend of the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

This is so ridiculous, I can't believe how ridiculous it is.

The Jackson Hole Star-Tribune seemed far more liberal in its coverage:

Arrest leads to Rainbow riot

By TOM MORTON
Star-Tribune staff writer

U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses.

"They were so violent, like dogs," Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network after the incident.

"People yelled at them, 'You're shooting children,'" Parker said during an interview on the network's "Rule of Law Show."

About 7,000 people have arrived at the gathering near Big Sandy in the Wind River Mountains for the annual Gathering of the Tribes, a seven-day event of fellowship, partying including illicit drug use, praying, and living on the land.

They camp on Forest Service land around the country every year, but the Rainbow family's non-hierarchical methods -- no one can speak for the Rainbows, much less sign a land use permit -- often have stymied their relationships.

But rarely do the tensions escalate into violence.

The Forest Service's Incident Command Team in Rock Springs issued a press release Friday morning, saying officers were patrolling the main meadow of the gathering Thursday evening when they contacted a man who fled and was later caught. Another Rainbow was detained for physically interfering.

Officers began to leave the area with the subjects and were circled by Rainbow participants, according to the news release from Rita Vollmer of the Incident Command Team.

Ten officers were escorting the detained subjects when about 400 Rainbows surrounded the squad, and more officers were requested, according to the news release.

"The mob began to advance, throwing sticks and rocks at the officers. Crowd control tactics were used to keep moving through the group of Rainbows," the news release said.

Other law enforcement agencies were called to the scene, the news release said.

Officers made five arrests; one officer suffered minor injuries and was cleared by a local hospital; and a government vehicle sustained damage, the news release said.

"This lawless behavior is unacceptable and we will not tolerate it," said John Twiss, Forest Service director of law enforcement. "The safety of our employees, public and Rainbow participants is our number one priority, and we will continue to protect everyone on the national forest."

Vollmer of the Forest Service Incident Management Team did not return calls requesting comment Friday.

Rainbow Family members' accounts told a different story.

One member who identified himself only as "Ryan" told Stevens he was with his two children in his tent at the Rainbows' Kid Village north of the main meadow where the major prayer circles and dinners are held.

One of the 10 officers pointed a pepper spray gun at him and his children, he said. His girlfriend was using the latrine outside when four officers came to her and asked if she was smoking marijuana.

The officers then ran through the Kid Village and through its kitchen, and chaos erupted, he said.

Other witnesses recounted seeing about 10 officers of the Forest Service's incident command team drag an older man from the woods near the Kid Village, according to interviews by Stevens.

A woman in the village told the officers to take their guns out of the Kid Village. An officer threw that woman to the ground and pulled her head back by her hair while she was being handcuffed, one Rainbow named Rick told Stevens.

"I got out and yelled, 'what the f--- are you doing?'" Rick said. "That got it started."

The officers backed up in a defensive position, and some used their Tasers on Rainbows, he said.

Rainbows called for their crisis management team, and Rainbow family elders urged the crowd to remain calm, he said. However, the crowd kept moving, and the Forest Service officers began randomly spraying the crowd with pepper spray bullets.

The officers, with their two suspects in custody, found an exit trail from the main meadow, and the peacekeepers urged the crowd to let them go, he said.

"These people deliberately, for hours, were aggressively working the camp over and working the people over," Ryan said. "They chose the kiddie village -- the one place, the kids, to take their stand and create a riot, and I bought into it. ... They were looking for an excuse to do some damage to us."

Ryan's partner, Feather, told Stevens she was pepper-sprayed, and saw another Rainbow with welts all over his body.

Feather also recounted seeing a couple with a young child and an infant who had just emerged from the woods and didn't know what was happening.

The couple asked the officers what was going on, and the officers pointed their guns at the children. The officers walked away, but one turned around and pointed his rifle at the baby, she told Stevens.

Robert Kinn of Afton told the Casper Star-Tribune in an interview Friday that he and his family had been camping and drove to Big Sandy because they'd never been to a gathering.

Forest Service officers gave Kinn a citation and a $175 ticket for allowing someone to ride on his vehicle's trailer, and said the officers weren't polite. "I was scared, was harassed."

Kinn and his family went to the main circle for dinner, when they heard people yelling about needing help to put out a fire in the Kid Village.

About 10 minutes later, people came back to tell the main circle the fire was over, and the crowd resumed eating, he said.

One of the senior Rainbows gathered the crowd and explained the clash with the Forest Service, and another man showed where rubber bullets hit him in the stomach, Kinn said.

Kinn and his family drove home that night, he said.

And finally, the American Civil Liberties Union has been called in. (Don't leave home without em!)

ACLU plans to investigate Rainbow Family treatment

By BEN NEARY – July 6, 2008

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union said Saturday that it plans to investigate the actions of federal law enforcers who arrested five Rainbow Family members in western Wyoming during their annual gathering.

The U.S. Forest Service says a mob of about 400 members of the Rainbow Family, a group of hippie types and eccentrics who camp on public land every year, threw rocks and sticks at Forest Service officers who tried to arrest a member of the group.

Up to 60 federal and local law enforcers responded, Forest Service officials say, and fired "pepper balls" — similar to paint balls but containing a pepper solution — at the crowd to control it.

As many as 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family camped out this year on Forest Service land near the Big Sandy Reservoir. The group holds a weeklong gathering on public land in a different area each year.

The Rainbows and federal officers have clashed before, and in 1998, the Forest Service established a national response team to deal with the group.

The ACLU plans to accept collect calls from Rainbow Family members for the next two weeks to hear their version of events, Linda Burt, executive director of Wyoming's ACLU, said Saturday.

Burt said she has been concerned to hear reports that Rainbow Family members have been ticketed for small traffic infractions. She also said she has heard reports that officers have walked among the Rainbow camps asking people whether they're using drugs.

"I have some real concerns about how this is handled," Burt said. "Particularly the pretext arrests — the idea that people are just cruising around looking for people to arrest when there have been no complaints and no reason for them to be there."

Burt said the ACLU's response to the matter will depend on what it learns from Rainbow Family members. It's possible the ACLU will issue a report, she said, and it may also consider posting observers at future Rainbow Family gatherings.

Rita Vollmer, spokeswoman for the Forest Service, declined Saturday to name the five people arrested Thursday or say why the agency was trying to arrest the first person.

Italics mine, of course. Stating they have "clashed before" is interesting. They have? Translation: The Feds have harassed the Rainbow Family before, and the Rainbow Family has always relied on love and peace to talk the various authorities out of mass arrests for LSD and reefer.

I guess this time--? What happened differently?

I'd like to know.

***

EDIT 7/10/08: I got a couple of emails asking "Just who is the Rainbow Family?"--and this is the best description I have found online.
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Listening to: Grateful Dead - The Music Never Stopped
via FoxyTunes