[fight_truth_decay]

There's a whole lot more to living under the "tag words": "Off the Grid", than just installing solar power, driving teeny-weeny electric cars, putting up that the newest and expensive wind mill that can just sit idle for days. I know, as I drive by one just up from a house built into the side of a hill; however, only 5 minutes from a upscale Maine town, nowhere as remote or peaceful as the setting where the people you will learn about here call home.

I have just concentrated on one writer who lives her novels, Carolyn Chute; as I have always admired her works. They really do live Off the Grid.

Carolyn Chute's infamous, Beans of Egypt Maine [some critics have compared to Faulkner’s Snopeses], is an all time favorite of mine. Chute also went on to write Letourneau's Used Auto Parts ('88) and Merry Men ('94)all set in the town of Egypt, Maine. Her Snow Man ('99) is about the underground militia movement. "June", The School on Heart's Content Road, set in the year 2000, is the story of Mickey Gammon, a dropout who turns to the local militia turned on to a world known as the Settlement, a polygamist compound out in Maine-a rural cooperative, deals with alternative energy, farm produce, and local goods, but comes under scrutiny when an article about them is published, demonizing them by deeming it a place of sin."

The Chutes founded a militia group known as the Second Maine Militia. She and her husband, Michael, are fierce defenders of the Second Amendment, keeping an AK-47 and a small cannon at their back-woods home in Maine (usually just she just says: "heavily armed".

Carolyn Chute is said to stitch together her Stars and Stripes in Green, Red and camouflage.

Chute's husband, Michael, explained in a Time interview, How the Beans of Egypt, Maine , Sprouted a Militia:

"From the beginning, we were the No-Wing Militia. "We ain't right wing, we ain't left wing. We're trying to get the folks to see the problem ain't left versus right, it's up versus down." He uses a tool analogy. "A Republican is a standard screw," said Chute. "A Democrat is a Philips screw. So whichever way you vote you get the screw."

Carolyn Chute speaking at her last meeting (?) with the 2nd Maine Militia group : “What is America? The Grand Canyon and the pine tree? OK. A flag? Freedom, or some other twisted, abstract word? Or is it a country? Nope, it isn’t even a country anymore. The WTO (World Trade Organization) has stolen our government, above the one we see on maps. The rulers are a cartel, they’re above national, mega-titans behind closed doors. They are like Caesar, pharaohs. TV, all mainstream media and schools have trained us well to believe that there is an America. I think the American flag is beautiful. I’m fond of it.” [From childhood, she remembered the words] “‘Liberty and justice for all,’ which was a lie then, and it still is, but I feel it as a wish, and I feel it with tears. I would like to think of this flag as mine.” The bumper sticker on the Chute pickup reads, “School Takes 13 Years Because That’s How Long It Takes to Break a Child’s Spirit.”

Michael, of his wife Carolyn leaving the militia: “She’s really a private woman, and she needs peace and quiet”(passion for writing). When suggested the 2nd Maine Militia (started in '95) might not be disbanding, and rather having its "last meeting for the foreseeable future", Mike nodded and said: “That’s right. We’ll (Militia) never die.”

[Note: I am in no way promoting Rosen's book, just some research led me to his YouTube promo).

[fight_truth_decay]

Ping-

you got me thinking with your electric cars posts... what "living off the grid" really means.

[fight_truth_decay]

Ping

[WKUHilltopper]

How are these folks any different than those so-called survivalists of the 60s and 70s?

[Colvin]

I remember when her Beans novel came out. Some New Yorkers were appalled because she described the kids across the road as playing in, gasp, dirt!
She hated Reagan, but she hated the left equally well.

Anyway, if you want to get in touch with your inner hippy, her novels are a good start.

I just built my barn, and have the roof facing south so I can use solar if needed. It will probably come in hand for heating water at the very least.

[thackney]

Bookmark

[wolfcreek]

We haven’t made the big jump of being isolated and off the grid but, we are prepared to live without it for a spell.

So should everyone.

[grumpygresh]

Here we see an illustration of the “environmental purist”. Most of these people depicted in the video were 1960s inspired environmentalists. These people believe in an environmental preeminency; the environment as the transcendental or even an object of worship for a revived paganism.
This differentiates them from conservationists who take the most rational view of the relationship between the environment and the good of society. This view balances individual property rights with the rights of society as a whole.
The most insidious group is the environmental Marxists best exemplified by Van Jones. They seek to promote Marxism by exploiting popular concern over the environment. They target these “environmental purists” as useful idiots that can become unwitting activists for the Marxist cause.

[taildragger]

These folks seem to be from both right and left and have just had it. They only thing they may have in common is that they feel the defecate is going to hit the rotary oscillator real soon.

[Americanexpat]

Ronald Reagan promised to have smaller government and get them out of our lives. However, it seems government has only grown larger and is in facet of our lives. They tell us what we can say with the silly PC rules and hate crime laws. Try to tell us what we can read by constant attacks on the right wing media and the Internet. They intrude into our homes and families by telling us what we can eat, how we raise our children, etc.. The have taken over the education of our children and are trying to turn them into homosexuals or promiscuous sexuality with their sex education, giving out condoms and helping our children obtain abortions without consulting the parents. Maybe we just need to tear it down and start over, I do not want to live in Obama’s world and will never support a communist government.