The Social Dynamics of Hippy Anarchist Road Warriors

There are those who are bedraggled by heroin, booze, and methamphetamine who stand at the freeway on-ramps with guilt-inducing signs about their homelessness, loss of veterans benefits, or the need to put food in their kids' mouths; the ones we are all less than excited about giving money to, but on occasion we do, while most don't.  Then there are the folks, very prominent here in Portland, Oregon, who I will refer to as the hippie anarchist road warriors.  They usually have really well-fed, loved dogs, who sit faithfully by their side; ragged but intentionally designed and sometimes homemade clothes, sporting Anarchy signs and other anti-establishment signage; dread-locked or punk-like hairdos; have a love of one another that is admirable, hence the hippie part of the title; and military style backpacks that they also adorn with all kinds of messages, bandannas, and mementos they collect on their travels.  They are young, usually childless, coming often from upper middle-class families and academic promise -a lifestyle they have, for multitudes of reasons, dropped out of altogether.
The hippie anarchist road warriors are altogether different from the average "panhandler."  Many of them are the same folks you saw at Occupy encampments all over the country, some of whom were there primarily for the free food and space to call their own if even temporarily.  However, many of them, like I said, come from fairly respectable backgrounds, growing up in homes of luxury, dropping out if you will.  But what most of them have in common are intensely anti-establishment beliefs; anti-capitalist morals; and genuine distrust for all kinds of government.  Can you blame them?  With the average age being something in the twenties, they all came out of the womb relatively screwed.  What unites many of them is a love, albeit usually quite naive, of Anarchism.  Being that Eugene, Oregon is the philosophical home of Anarcho-Primitivism, headed up by John Zerzan, a resident of the area, it is no wonder that young, wandering neo-hippies who follow an Anarchist logic in their lives, end up there, and here in Portland.  I knew many of them in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota as well.


What separates this group of "homeless people" for lack of a better term, is how they are treated by those with homes, cars, and jobs.  As I was riding home today on my scooter, I was stopped at a light in an intersection near a strip mall and major thoroughfare.  There were two kids, no older than maybe 21, sitting on their backpacks holding up signs that said "spare change or a ride south."  Cars were driving past them, mostly not paying any attention to them, until a small white car full of young White women came by.  As it rolled through the intersection they yell out "you guys are fucking losers."  To that, the two Anarchists (I could see the Anarchist symbols on their backpacks now) yelled back, "we're not the ones shopping at Walmart, you are."  That really made me think.  I constantly hear people, even close friends, say how they are sick and tired of all these otherwise totally healthy people panhandling every day.  And their virulent responses are usually, in my experience, not pointed toward the completely whacked out on meth families begging for money, but toward the Anarchists who so clearly want nothing to do with the lifestyle that the drivers by are engaged in.  Why is that?

If we take a step back and look at the situation objectively, that is, not from the usual position of a "have" looking down upon the "have-nots" - as I would say the average attitude is toward those engaged in pandhandling - the Anarchists in the above paragraph have a really good point.  The Army backpack wielding, torn and patch-sewn clothes wearing, anti-establishment believing hippie anarchist road warriors are not the ones buying thousands of dollars of Chinese slave-labor produced goods at Walmart; they are not the ones driving 2000 pound SUV's with no passengers; they are not the ones voting for corporatist parties to keep driving the country into a ditch; they are not buying iPhones, computers, and other gadgets simply to have them; and perhaps most importantly, they are actively not supporting the unjust lifestyle that Americans enjoy, and they are proud of it.  They are taking the medicine long before the rest of us will have to; they are reading; they are not usually high on anything other than pot and the occasional hallucinogen, from my experience of meeting folks like this, and I have met many; and they actually say thank you when you give them food, money, or a ride, usually ending with something like "have a blessed day."

The next time you run across some of these folks, instead of immediately judging them, think about what they might actually be teaching us about ourselves.  Are people yelling out the window for them to get a job or whatnot because they are all secretly miserable in their own lives and want them to be miserable with us?  Is it really any deeper than that?  I think not.  As for me, I'm gonna start thanking them; thanking them for reminding the rest of us what we are doing to the Earth and to her people by living the materialistic nightmare we are all a part of.  Those who use the least among us have earned the right to live long after us.