The Rainbow Family of Living Light was founded on certain principles which include:
Respect for others
Non-violence
Consensus through an open egalitarian counselling process
Caring, Sharing, and Doing
Every peaceful person is welcomed to attend and participate.
Thats funny.
Really.
Any of you ever met Rainbow People?
I encountered a band of them going to one of their "gatherings" in the Shawnee natl. forest in S. Illinois about ............. oh, I guess about 15 or 16 years ago. I had no idea what they were, other than they stank of sweat and pi$$ and some other interesting odors I've only encountered in a milder form when several of us would go hunting for 2 weeks and share a cabin in the woods with no way to bathe or wash clothes after gutting deer. About all we could do was splash some water on us out of a small stream out back and wash our hands. Take that smell and muliply it by about 100 times and thats the smell these ............ freaks ............ gave off. They cleared out the dining room and lobby of the restaraunt I was managing at the time just by standing there. When I went to see what they wanted, they started begging for food. I turned them down and one of the smelly things (I think it was female, at least I have convinced myself it was just for the sake of my own sanity) actually offered to "service" me in their VW van (which they claimed broke down conveniently in my parking lot) in exchange for food.
They use the barter system for everything you see. They dont believe in money. Some of them make crafts to trade. I saw one of them that made a rather realistic suit of armor out of galvanized steel trash cans. Some grow pot to trade. Those guys are really popular for some reason. Some of them trade sex for what they want. Why anyone would be interested I dont know, but I guess if you all look and smell that bad, you dont notice anymore.
I managed to decline without gagging, but thats when they started to get nasty. Apparently their "non-violence" policy only applies to each other or people who give them stuff. Everyone else is open season. One of them tried to come around the end of the counter where the cash register was, headed for the kitchen, and one of the waitresses gave him a big driveway broom to the nose. Didnt help his looks any, but it sure made him back off. Someone else had already called the police and they showed up about then, and amazingly that broke down old VW started up and they took off.
I have a "shoot on sight" policy for Rainbow People after that.