Off-The-Grid
Extremely American
February 9, 20222.9.22
Post by James Dawson at Boise State Public Radio on Twitter:
“The Idaho National Guard wants to repeal a section of state law that bans private militias, saying it’s unconstitutional. A prominent anti-extremist institute disagrees.” boisestatepublicradio.org/politics-gover #idpol #idleg
Why is the Idaho National Guard interested in repealing this? -dayle
“Militias have risen to prominence in recent years in Idaho.”
The 51st State
‘Way up in the Northern Rockies there’s a sort of mythical 51st state. It’s called the American Redoubt and it encompasses Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Oregon and Washington. Adherents to its philosophy believe in a kind of theocratic limited government utopia, one with lots of guns. Alex Barron is the movement’s self-appointed “bard” and his rhetoric has all the violence of a Shakespearean tragedy.”What are you willing to kill for?” he asks a crowd of far-right activists wondering about where the line should be when responding to the government with force.Redoubters like Barron talk about their movement like evangelists and in a way they are – they are recruiting people to move there, live off the grid and run for office. And it’s working – they are reshaping their communities in Idaho and surrounding states, and as far as they’re concerned, those who disagree can leave.’
-Heath Druzin, @HDruzin, Boise State Public Radio
#MustListen podcast created and written by Druzin; immensely educational. It’s dark, yet absolutely necessary to unpack what is happening with the growth and organization of militia groups in Idaho and across the country. -dayle
🙋♀️
September 19, 2021GQ
A cabin at Table Mountain Ranch with a geodesic dome.
The Last Glimpses of California’s Vanishing Hippie Utopias
Half a century ago, a legion of idealists dropped out of society and went back to the land, creating a patchwork of utopian communes across Northern California. Here, the last of those rogue souls offer a glimpse of their otherworldly residences—and the tail end of a grand social experiment.There was an aphorism in the movement: “Bad roads make good communes.” And the road we’re on today is bad. Several miles inland from California’s foggy coastline, we’re driving down a single lane hemmed in by 50-foot fir trees and then turn onto a rocky dirt path, joggling our rented SUV. Photographer Michael Schmelling and I are in Mendocino County, about a three-hour drive north of San Francisco, looking for what remains of perhaps the most famous of the hundreds of rural communes established across Northern California in the late ’60s and ’70s: Table Mountain Ranch.
The entire expanse—which once was a kind of American Arcadia, home to scores of hippies who’d fled San Francisco to live a new, idealistic kind of life
At one point in 1970, Table Mountain had over a hundred residents, some living in tipis, some in cabins, some crashing in the open air. It appears that before it became a commune, the 120-acre property had been a dude ranch, and the cabins and outbuildings were constantly being expanded in an endless ad hoc construction project.
It’s common in Northern California to find people who abruptly dropped out of society, never to return.
A deserted cabin at Table Mountain Ranch.
https://www.gq.com/story/californias-vanishing-hippie-utopias