Rob Ayling writes: It just felt right to include a daily poem from Thom on our Gonzo blog and when I approached him to do so, he replied with in seconds!!! Thom is a great talent and just wants to spread poetry, light and positive energy across the globe. If we at Gonzo can help him do that - why not?"
Why not indeed!!"
WHY NO COMMUNES IN 2015?
SOME STILL SURVIVE-
Religious based,belief-based,job
based,collectives of necessity
Yet Utopian Experiments in both Americas
failed massively
Artist's Collectives thrived
intermittently-yet schisms and factions
make motion out of community as much as
internment within.
Tendencies towards Manson charisma leaders
provoke dissent
People change religious ,political and
cultural beliefs as they grow
And children often reject the heritage of
their parents
Rates of change have compounded.Withdrawal
from society
is now virtually impossible.Monasteries and
retreats exist,
but even they are linked via Internet.In an
Instagram world,
history(of ideas and ideals)has inbuilt
redundancies.
We are history.We are ruins(of
philosophies..
Photos: The Ruins Of A 1910s Socialist Commune In The Desert
by
Juliet Bennett
Rylah in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 11, 2015
4:00 pm
Llano del Rio, now nothing more than
desert ruins, was once meant to be a thriving Socialist commune. How it came to
be, and then not be, is a fascinating story that begins in early 1900s Los
Angeles.
The modern-day ruins of Llano del
Rio can be found in Llano, just east of Palmdale off the Pearblossom
Highway. You can make a pitstop at Charlie Brown Farms in Little Rock, stock up on sundries, and
from there, it's only minutes away. Once you get there, you can pull off the
road and there isn't much to stop you from wandering around and frankly, there's
not much left. How it came to be involves the "crime of the century" and one
man's failed mayoral campaign.
Back in 1911, a man named Job Harriman
was running for Mayor of Los Angeles. If he had been elected, he would have been
the first Socialist mayor. Things weren't looking terrible for him, either.
Harriman, who was born in Illinois, was a minster and then a lawyer before
turning his attention to politics. In the 1911 primaries, he was securing 44
percent against the current mayor, George Alexander.
However, in 1910, two brothers—John and
James McNamara—were accused of committing what the L.A. Times would call the
"crime of the century." The McNamaras, both active trade unionists, were accused
of bombing the L.A. Times building. The editor of the Times at the time was the
conservative, anti-Union Harrison Gray Otis.
The McNamaras would eventually confess
to several bombings, but prior to the attack on the Times building, no one was killed. The bombers had wanted the Times bomb to go
off at 4 a.m., when the Times building would be empty. However, the timer
screwed up and the bomb—consisting of 16 sticks of dynamite in a suitcase—went
off at 1 a.m. instead. It was also near natural gas main lines, something the
bombers didn't know. Part of the building collapsed due to the dynamite, and a
raging fire took care of the rest. And, because Times employees were working on
an early edition, 115 people were inside at the time of the bombing. In total,
20 of them were killed and several more were injured. (Note: Some sources report
21 fatalities.)
A private detective narrowed in on the
brothers, tracking one to a hotel in Detroit where he was found with dynamite on
him. By the time the trial rolled around, Harriman was the promising challenger
to Alexander's re-election, but still agreed to help defend the brothers in
court. He acted as co-counsel to Clarence Darrow, a notable attorney on the side
of labor. Many thought the brothers were being framed as part of a capitalist,
anti-labor plot, so support for Harriman remained strong throughout much of the
proceedings. Unfortunately for Harriman, the brothers eventually pleaded guilty
in the eleventh hour—James B. McNamara to the Times bombing, and John J.
McNamara to the bombing of Llewellyn Iron Works. Their admission of guilt ruined
Harriman's campaign.
As Darrow left the courthouse after the guilty pleas, an angry crowd pressed in around him. A man spat in his face. The courthouse lawn was littered with badges that read "Harriman for Mayor" and "McNamaras Innocent — Vote Harriman," which had been torn from the lapels of thousands of McNamara supporters.
After his 1911 defeat, Harriman ran
again in 1913, this time securing only 26 percent of the primary.
Harriman gave up on politics and
decided to try to build a socialist commune instead.
"It became apparent to me that a people
would never abandon their means of livelihood, good or bad, capitalistic or
otherwise, until other methods were developed which would promise advantages at
least as good as those by which they were living," Harriman wrote.
He bought a few thousand acres, plus
water rights, in the Antelope Valley in the Mojave Desert. Some of the land had
already been developed by a temperance colony that had previously lived there.
Harriman advertised for residents in social newspapers.
A 1914 ad from the 'Western Comrade'
When Llano del Rio opened on May Day,
1914, it was only five families and some animals, but it soon grew. In 1917, the
commune was 900 strong with its own monthly periodical, a bakery, a kiln, a
cannery, a hotel and a sawmill. Though they held evening dances and participated
in some sport, it wasn't much of a party. Those who joined the commune were
expected to remain sober and to not curse. And while they were open to feminist
ideas, only whites were allowed in.
According to a 1916 advertisement for
new colonists:
Only Caucasians are admitted. We have had applications from Negroes, Hindus, Mongolians and Malays. The rejection of these applications are not due to race prejudice, but because it is not deemed expedient to mix the races in these communities.
The Western Comrade newspaper published a story about big plans for the Llano del Rio colony (via Wikipedia)
The downfall, however, came only a few
years after the commune's launch. They came up against nearby farmers who
accused the commune of taking more water than it was entitled to, resulting in a
series of legal battles, which Llano del Rio lost. They also lost younger men to
the draft, and ambivalent members to higher-paying jobs created by WWI. That,
combined with infighting, led to the commune's demise. Harriman moved the
commune to Louisiana in 1918, but soon left to return to L.A. Without him, the
commune carried on into the
'30s.
Nowadays, you can see several of the
structures, though the grounds are mostly covered in broken bottles and rusted
cans, with graffiti on the remaining ruins. According to
Tom Explores Los Angeles, who also visited the site, there was a plaque at
one point designating the historical significance of the area. However, that
plaque was apparently stolen only two years after it was installed.
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