Full citation: Georgette, Almond, Dug, Turtle, and Al D., eds., Earth First! Journal 22, no. 1 (1 November 2001). Digitized in cooperation with the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/7064
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art irst! Samhain November-December 2001
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DEAR SFB: LEITERS TO THE EDITORS ...... 3 BLASTFROMTHEPAST:MARCDAVISSAYSWAKEUP!. .. 33 ANTI-COLUMBUS DAY PROTEST DISRUPTED BY POLICE ... 12 ARMED WITH VISIONS ...... •.••..•.••..•...•....•. 38 THE CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO GETTING ARRESTED .•...... 14 NAVY BOMBS DRAW FIRE OVER CALIFORNIA •.....•.•.. .42 FROM THE INSIDE: INTERVIEW WITH FREE IN PRISON •...• 16 REVOLUTION IN INDIA ...••...... •....•...... •...... 43 0HIOTREESITIERSTAKEACTION •...•...••...••...... 18 WHY THE FUTURE NEEDS Us .•• . •...... •.....• .44 DAVID CHAIN V. GOLIATH MAXXAM SETTLEMENT .. .. 19 STRIPED SKUNKS ARE IMPORTANT Too ...... •.•.••••...... 48 GoDS VALLEYTREESIT ATIACKEDBY0DF ...... •....•. 20 ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS OF THE WEIRD •...... 49 Jum BARI v. THE FBI DELAYED UNTIL APRIL ..•...•.. 22 BooK REVIEW: EDWARD ABBEY, A LIFE ••..•••.•••••...• S2 BLUE REVOLUTION SPAWNS FRANKENFISH .•...... •..•...• 24 STRIKING CHORDS: INTERVIEW WITH DAVID Rovrcs ... 53 NORWAY'S ENVIRONMENTAL KILLER: NORSKESKOG •..••• 25 SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ••••••••...•...... 58 INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS CASE DECIDED .•••...... ••• 26 THE EFFECTS OF PRISONS •••••••••.••••••...... •. 60 MINNEHAHA SACRED SPRING HALTS DESTRUCTION •... 27 PRISONER SUPPORT: THEY NEED YOUR SUPPORT ...••.• 61 WHAT DOEs RACISM HAVE TO Do WITH Us? ...... 28 EARTH FIRST! DIRECTORY ...... •...... •... 62 WOLVES & POODLES ...... 32 DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA ....•...... 64 . The Rac/icalEnvironmental Journal Earth First! Journal Samhain November I. 2001 Vol. 22, No. 1
The Earth First! Journal is published by an editorial staff from within the Earth First! movement. Entire contents are copyrighted 2001. We allow reprint ing if credifis given, except for those articles specifically copyrighted by the _author. Art, photographs and poetry are copyrighted by the individual art ists and permission for use must be received from them. Earth First! Journal is a forum for the no compromise environmental movement. Responsibility rests with the individual authors and correspondents. The con tents do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of this newspaper, the Earth First! movement, local Earth First! groups or individual Earth First!ers. Submissions are welcomed and should be typed or clearly printed. Send a SASE if you would like them returned. If you want confirmation of receipt for a submission, please request it. We en, courage submissions on Macintosh disks or via email. Art or photographs are desirable to illustrate articles and essays. Prints are best, negatives are good, slides are fair. They will be re turned if requested. All submissions are edited for length and clarity. If an article is significantly edited, we will make a reasonable effort to contact the author prior to publication. ISSN 1055-8411 Earth First! Journal is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. The Earth First! Journal is recorded on microfilm by University Microfilms, Inc. All correspondence regarding subscrip tions, merchandise orders, donations, letters to the editor, articles, photos, graphics, etc. should be directed to: Earth First! Journal POB 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702 Phone: (520) 620-6900 Fax: (413) 254-0057 collective@earthfirstjoumal.org www.earthfirs tjoumal.org
Business Manager: Sky Partners in Crime: Frog and Lisa Editorial Collective: Geqrgette, Almond, Dug, Turtle, AI D. Poetry Editor: Dennis Fritzinger Earth First! Journal is published eight times a year on the solstices, equinoxes and cross Volunteers: Pete, Hidro, Palmira, quarter days on or about November 1, December 21 (Winter Solstice), February 2, March 21 (Vernal Equinox), Acasia, Christian, A], Cullen, Debbie, May 1,June 21 (Summer Solstice), August 1 and September 22 (Autumnal Equinox) by Daily Planet Publishing, Jeneiene, Daniel, Bill, Juan Dolor, Miss POB 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702. US subscriptions are $30. Outside the US, surface delivery is $40 and airmail is Waldron, Gigi $50. See form, page 58. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to EF! Journal, POB 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702. Application to mail at Periodicals postage rates is pending at Tucson, AZ 85726-9653. Front cover: M.C. Pearson Front inside cover: Peter Bralver Upcoming deadlines: Yule-November 12/Brigid-January 2 Page 2 Earth First! Samhain 2001 reminded them of the movies Independence Day or Die Hard. But the movie that came to my mind was Ghostbusters. The scene where Bill Murray and DanAykroydbattletosaveNew of evil doers". wondered, York City from the giant "Does this mean he is going to Pillsbury Doughboy that was kill himself? Does getting rid spawned by their own imagi of terrorism mean we will abol nations seemed to me like the ish the CIA?" For if ridding most apt metaphor for what the world of evil is anything, had happened. it is an introspective process. The other cinematic refer Dr. Martin LutperNng Jr. ence that I kept thinking spoke about good and evil in a about was the scene from Re sermon that he gave just one turn of the Jedi where Luke month before his assassination. Skywalker battles Darth He said, "There is a tension at Vader. Vader keeps trying to the heart of the universe inspire hate in Luke whisper between good and evil. ing, "I can feel the hate" as he llii!Wtt:m~lM Now not only is that attempts to draw Luke to the struggle structured out dark side. Luke is in a state of Dear Shit Fer Brains, somewhere in the external confused consternation but When I first heard that ex forces oftheuniverse, it's struc keeps trying to remember ploding jets had hit the World tured in our own lives. And in what it means to be a good Trade Center and the Penta every one of us this morning, ]edi knight. George W. seems gon I was elated. A Palestinian there's a war going on. It's a tobesayingtome, "OKPeggy group claimed responsibility civil war. I don't care who you Sue, I know you hate me. I'm and I burst out with, "Woo are, I don't care where you live, really scaring you now aren't Hoo! Go Palestine!" Immedi there is a civil war going on in I? Surrender to hate. Come ately the Palestinian claim your life. Every time you set over to the dark side". I have proved to be false . Immedi out to love, something keeps to steal myself to the com ately I began to grapple with pulling on you, trying to get plexities of living out a com the reality of what had just you to hate. There's a tension mitment to non-violence and happened revising my re at the heart of human nature. try to grasp what that really sponse to, "Oh Shit!" And whenever we set out to means. Collectively as a na Reports started coming in dream our dreams and to build tion or within our own hearts about hundreds of NYC our temples, we must be hon we can't win a battle against firefighters being crushed to est enough to recognize it." evil with more evil. The only death while saving others. Sto There have been many cin weapon that will work is love. ries of horror and heroism con ematic references to the events I love you all, tinued non-stop. George W. surrounding the Attack on -PEGGY SuE Bush vowed to "rid the world America. People have said it continued on page 34
BY FAITH WALKER
male, since he'll father more spiderlings if she takes that cannibalistic nibble. Be Fauna. n. animal life. ing eaten while mating allows Cabala. n. an esoteric, secret matter or mysterious art. more sperm to transfer, and a Male Australian redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti) com- female who cannibalizes apparently can't mit copulatory suicide. At most two percent of female mass, stomach another mate. these diminutive spiders spend their few-month adult exist If he's unlucky he'll survive the encounter but will have lost ence seeking to mate and rarely, if ever, eat. A successful male the tip of his penis, which breaks off inside the female, and mates via penetration followed by a well-executed somersault will never mate again. Unlikely to become female fodder, which causes him to spend his moments of bliss with his since she prefers the somersault position, he'll hang out on abdomen pressed firmly against the jaws of his mate. If he's her web until he perishes of old age. It's common in arthropods lucky, the female, who lives two years and has an assortment for a food gift to be presented by males to females during of males to choose from, will be preoccupied with slurping mating. The redback simply takes it a step further by offering spider cider thus prolonging mating. This is adaptive for the his own belly jelly as a delicacy. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 3 IN THE ABSENCE OF THE CONFUSION OF NOISE
ism. I miss the days when the Journal like a single grain in a huge ocean of was filled with articles about hunt sabs sand, probably important, but who and whether spiking trees was good or knows. It was difficult to gain strength bad. Those were times when I felt rather than an overwhelming hope empowered and involved. I believed lessness from that experience. that !-little ol' me-could do some Today there are no airplanes and thing that would make a difference. I the confusion of noise that has suc am not sure I ever did, but at least I felt cessfully clouded my attitude has like I could. As a frontlines activist I cleared with the rubble of the set fought for the wilderness, small and tling towers. I can make a statement insignificant as that seems compared and a difference. I can do it without to the global situation. I fought for killing anyone, and I can change the the animals and trees in my back world slowly by starting in my back yard. Today I read that I was selfish, yard. I am an Earth First!er. I do believe that I should have been fighting the in putting the wild first. Before me and BY KRIS MAENZ multinational monster, that frontlines my petty attitudes and arguments. I Yesterday I sat on the porch and activism is passe and not exciting have not lost the passion that drives us watched birds twittering away. They enough for EF!, that only big demon all to forsake luxury in order to make have discovered that the giant sun strations and arson mean anything. the planet a better place for nature. flower in the yard is almost dry It is so difficult though, because I am Maybe I am not like the new people enough for them to swoop by and not big. I am small and only one. And in the movement but that does not grab seeds on the run. The squirrel in even when I am joined with others,we make me any lesser, it merely makes the neighboring tree has made the are still barely minute in the eyes of me different. I feel so old school, like same discovery, so I suspect that the giants. I liked fighting with joe hunter the grouchy old codgers who write birds may not get as many delicious and Jack logger. I could sometimes scathing letters to the paper about the morsels as they expect. It was a even change their minds. A few even newbies' ideas and philosophies. This strangely quiet day. There was less quit what they were doing, forever. weird quiet outside, the sadness of so traffic than usual on the road, and They might have gone back to their many deaths and the changes that this everyone that came into the store was small towns and changed their neigh will bring has made me acknowledge subdued. Which makes sense as the bors' minds too. I felt strong and in that I am an old schooler. It has also World Trade Center and Pentagon volved. Unlike in Seattle when I felt made me proud of that. were attacked only two days ago. But there was something else, some thing I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then I realized there were no air planes. The sky was completely quiet. The only other time in my life that I have neither seen nor heard planes was when I was out on the deep ocean, far from airports and flight paths. I understand now that I ignore the drone and gray noise that is a constant inva sion on my psyche. That I spend much too much time dwelling on the "big picture" and almost no time paying attention to my own space. In fact, the bombing has reaffirmed · in me how important it is to be an Earth First!er. It has reminded me that I need to look into my heart and see the beauty in nature. It has forced me to re-evaluate many things and to re alize that I have become disillusioned with the politics of EF!-with the gran diose discussions of what we should do and how we can save the entire planet from the corruption of capital-
Page 4 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Jfo£CJJ O:N, Jfo£CJJ Ow, Jfo£CJJ '1J-fE o/l)J~ %:Jz'I''s (]kmq (}3cyKJV just when we need to see most clearly. revolutionary. We also want a world in BY STARHAWK "Hold on, hold on, hold the vision, which no one has to fear violence, which The world has changed. An act of that's being born," our cluster is the ultimate violation of freedom. violence has cost the lives of thousands chanted in Quebec City at the FTAA This is the moment to reinvent our and shattered our plans and expecta protests. It may be that the most approach, our strategies and our tac tions for the future. We who have been radical thing we can do right now is tics, to believe in the possibility of working for global justice face an enor to act from our vision, not our fear, moving people to act from hope, to act mous challenge. Since Seattle, we've and to believe in the possibility of its in the service of what they love. What built and sustained a movement in spite realization. Every force around us is would this look like? It would mean ofcontinuallyescalatingpoliceviolence pushing us to close down, insulate, embodying the world we want to cre and attempts by the media to paint us as ate in our own movement and in our violent thugs. Genoa did not intimidate actions. Times of grief and anguish can us and momentum was growing for the strengthen our bonds. World Bank/IMF demonstrations in Our solidarity must go deeper than Washington, DC. Public opinion was we've ever known before. Solidarity shifting, and the whole edifice of corpo means listening to each other with rate rule was losing legitimacy. respect, and it means being willing to The attacks of September 11 could protect and support people with undermine all of our work, at least in whom we may disagree on many lev the short term. They are the perfect els, or who might simply irritate us. excuse for the state to intensify its Solidarity means strengthening our repression, restrict civil liberties and practice of direct democracy, our for anyone who speaks out against openness and communication with blind retaliation to be demonized. The each other, our willingness to bring mood of the country is ugly. People everyone to the table and give every are scared. They're angry. Their sense one affected by a decision a voice in of power and invulnerability has been making it. It means putting aside our badly shaken, and in the US, they're usual internal politicking and treat not used to it. They're grasping at ing each other with openness and anything which can restore their trust. This is not simple to do. But in sense of power over their lives. In a a moment when the ordinary pat violent society that means punish terns of life around us have been ment, retaliation, war. shattered, shifting our own patterns Many activists are also scared. I'm of behavior may actually be easier. scared of the repression that might Perspectives change, and the issues come, scared of being personally tar that last week seemed so important geted, scared of the loss of our liber may now seem trivial. ties, scared, yes, of further attacks. We have to ask ourselves, what But most of all I'm scared for the makes the most sense? What is most movement, which I believe is cru visionary? I'd like to see whatever we cial to our survival as a species. do involve some kind of process of And yet I also believe that the retreat. Instead, we need to advance, mutual discussion and education current crisis can be a great oppor but in a different way. We're called to around our visions of alternatives. tunity, if we can only see how to take a leap into the unknown. And I'd like to see us take that vision grasp it. Extraordinary times create As a movement, we've often been outside of our groups and to bring in extraordinary openings and possi accused oflacking a clear vision of the voices from the community to teach bilities. Our usual patterns and ways world we want. I think we do have a us about their issues and concerns. of thinking are shattered. When vision, it includes diversity and rejects That could be a teach-in, or maybe a structures fall, something new can uniform, dogmatic formulations. learn-in, where we go out into the be built. To do that, we have to be Within all its varied forms there's a clear community and ask people how is have in extraordinary ways. common ground: We want a world of sues of power and inequality affect We need to acknowledgtj our fears, liberty and justice for all. It sounds their lives, or what their visions are of but not act out of fear. Fear leads to downright patriotic,. but if you think the world they want. bad decisions and constricted vision, about its ramifications, they are continued on page 40
November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 5 ARE You A PATRIOT OR A TERRORIST? INTENSIFYING DOMESTIC REPRESSION stripping fundamental freedoms BY WARCRY from the American people. Public The "Death Star" is fully operational. safety in the long run is best pro It's been more than a month since tected by vigorous enforcement of the September 11 (9 /11) attacks. When the Constitution, not by giving more the wind blows your way in lower power to federal agencies that abuse Manhattan you can still smell the pu the powers they already have." trid mix of concrete dust and corpses. The American Civil Liberties Union As the rubble continues to smoke at (ACLU) criticizes provisions of the bill ground zero, US bombs have started that should be carefully reviewed for dropping on Afghanistan. "their due process and privacy implica Civilian casualties in Afghanistan tions" including proposals to eliminate are estimated by international sources the statute of limitations in terrorism to range betwe.en several dozen to offenses as well as increasing all terrorism upward of 200. With a press blackout penalties to possible life sentences. The imposed by the Bush administration, bill also seeks to expand Racketeer Influ accurate information is difficult to enced and Corrupt Organization (RICO), access. Americans may not have to which worries the ACLU. The RICO stat live with a rain of cluster bombs in a ute is broad and creates First Amend relentless, round the clock bombing ment concerns by prosecuting people on campaign but what Americans will the basis of guilt by association. have to live with is the rapid intensifi cation of our own police state. Al Press Blackout though Osama bin Laden has been As usual, the media is playing the portrayed as the terrorist poster boy of role of cheerleader for state propa the century, the question we need to ganda. Bush himself has introduced an ask isn't simply who did this, but rather information blackout on upcoming who benefits from these attacks? military operations. On September 27, As traumatized people and a shocked Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting nation attempt to comprehend and (FAIR) issued an alert "Nightly News recover from the terrorist attacks of Glosses Over Anti-Terrorism Act." The 9/11, in New York and Washington, report states that "despite the magni DC-the Bush administration shows tude of the changes the bill proposes, no sign of hesitation or doubt as it a search of the Nexis database of news takes full political advantage of these transcripts shows that neither CBS stunning developments to ram its Ev~ning News nor NBC Nightly News agenda through Congress. has aired a single report exploring the legislation's potential impact. ABC Provide Appropriate Tools World News Tonight has aired one report, Required to Intercept and going so far as to state as fact the idea that Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) security concerns will necessitate a loss a.k.a. The Anti-Terrorism Act of civil liberties. Introducing a related report about the newly established Of of2001 fice of Homeland Security, anchor Tom This proposed legislation is consis Brokaw said that the office's name tent with the decades-long pattern of "sounds like something out of a totali militarizing domestic policing and tarian regime," but nonetheless "the crushing internal unrest. attacks proved that something in The libertarian CATO Institute America has to change." NBC's Andrea harshly criticized· the Anti-Terrorist Mitchell went on to report that "no one Act, saying, "Eveiything that terror really knows how much authority the ists do is already iilegal. Current laws new security czar will really have" already provide ample authority for suggesting}that to stay safe, Americans investigations of potential terrorists. must surrender liberties without even The sensational threat of terrorism pausing to ask which ones." should not be used as a pretext for Page 6 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Threats to Direct Roving Wiretaps and are no longer needed, which means Action Movements Electronic Surveillance that the government will have access A statement made before the House Law enforcement officials would be to highly personal information that is Judidary Committee by Rachel King, able to track the addresses of email mes unrelated to criminal investigations." legislative counsel to the ACLU on the sages sent and received by "suspected Once again, King stresses, "The above Anti-terrorismActof2001, identifies "sig terrorists" without a search warrant, as listed provisions are not necessary to nificant dvilliberties problems. It is our they can now obtain telephone num prosecute serious cases of terrorism be strong belief that other provisions go far bers called by suspects. The Anti-Terror cause the law already covers those cases. beyond addressing the events of 9/11." ism Act would also make it easier for the Where these provisions will be applied Of great concern to direct action government to seize educational records. is in the less serious cases that are pros movements is that "the definition of Officials would be able to obtain a ecuted under the terrorism statute." terrorism under current law is al court order to wiretap the telephone of ready broad enough to include cer a specific suspect rather than just a Grand juries tain acts of civil disobedience. This specific telephone, eliminating the need "Under current law, information bill would expand the already broad to get new wiretap authority each time obtained during a grand jury is secret definition. For example, people in a "suspect" changes telephones, pay and only disclosed in limited cir volved in the demonstrations at the phones, friends' houses, etc. Attorney cumstances to attorneys and law en World Bank or protesting the bomb General]ohn Ashcroft wants Congress forcement officers working on the ing missions near Vieques Island, to let police use wiretaps more freely, case," said King, adding that "our may fall within the definition of ter arrest and deport people without war country has long prohibited the mili rorism," according to King. rants or hearings. Allowing the seizure tary from investigating civilian crimi King offered the following hypotheti of email and voicemail would encour nal cases." Sharing information from cal situation-that a college student age greater cooperation between the criminal cases with intelligence, mili could be charged under the federal ter CIA and FBI, possibly leading to CIA tary and immigration authorities rorism statute for damaging a federal operations inside the US, which is cur blurs the functions of the various building during a demonstration by rently barred under US law. organizations and risks violating the breaking a window. The government constitutional principle of keeping would be authorized to obtain a sample Secret Searches the military out of civilian law en of the person's DNA, eliminate the stat Other provisions that worry the ACLU forcement. Many persons investigated ute of limitations, release secret grand include "Sneak and Peak" searches. This by the grand jury are not indicted. jury evidence to military, intelligence or means that the government could en Keeping the proceedings secret safe immigration authorities, use RICO to ter your house or office with a search guards reputations from being dam investigate anyone who has ever at warrant when you are away, conduct a aged by unfounded accusations. tended a meeting with the defendant, search, seize or copy things such as or sentence the person to life in prison. your computer hard drive and not tell Conspiracy Laws PATRIOT descriptions of terrorism you until months later. According to According to King, another alarming include minor property destruction, King, ACLU is, "The Administration is section of PATRIOT "would make the with a protester receiving a sentence not seeking this power fqr the limited crime of attempted terrorism or con of life in prison. Eric Sterling, presi purpose of investigating serious crimes spiracy to commit terrorism punishable dent of the Criminal Justice Policy of terrorism, but is asking to expand it to the same degree as the underlying Foundation, says, "Even kids carrying to every single search warrant for any offense of terrorism. One could also Boy Scout knives who vandalize traf criminal case." . interpret this provision as a back-door fic signs can be labeled terrorists." attempt to expand the death penalty." Any use or threat to use a weapon Expanding the DNA Database King continued, "Another reading of against person or property" other than Speaking of unreasonable searches this provision would require anyone for mere personal monetary ga'in" and seizures, the federal government convicted of attempt or conspiracy to would constitute terrorism. will be able to raid your body for be punished as if he or she had com- As proposed, PATRIOT would allow "evidence" as well. The ACLU points . pleted the offense. This expansion prosecution of people who "support" out that "there are no provisions for could create some very unjust results. the activities of "terrorist organiza destroying DNA samples once they continued on page 43 tions," even if those organizations were not considered "terrorist" when the support was given. For example, a legal alien could be deported today for having lawfully contributed in the past to an organization such as the African National Congress, which used both military and nonviolent tactics. That means a financial donation to your favorite campaign could be considered "support" for terrorists.
November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 7 A Look at Environmental Issues During Wartime
bomb. Wartime priorities were used for appropriation of BY jAMES BELL wildlands for war-related research and experiments, as "We're the most bombed nation on Earth," proclaimed well as an excuse to open national forests for intensive Chief Raymond Yowell of the Western Shoshone National commodity extraction. Council at a 1997 protest against nuclear testing in Ne If you hike in Red Gate Woods today, all that remains vada. In terms of environmental damage from America's from this period are a couple of large stone markers. This historic war efforts, the US has at times suffered worse than is where the world's first two nuclear reactors, built by many of our enemies. Two nuclear bombs fell on Japan, physicist Enrico Fermi in 1942 and 1943, are buried. In but more than 900 have been detonated in Nevada-the compliance with the "friendly condemnation procedures homeland of the Western Shoshone. Wartime takes its toll of the Department of War," the Cook County's Argonne directly on many human lives, but it also indirectly im~ Forest Commission agreed to lease the forest preserves to pacts millions more as the effects of wartime exercises, the federal government for the duration of war pursuits. research and combat ripple through the environment and The Chicago Pile-1 nuclear reactor birthed the first con our communities. Only in the last century has the world trolled chain reaction under the bleachers of the Univer begun to understand the environmental impacts of war. sity of Chicago's Stagg Field. It later was moved and buried I lived with the Western Shoshone for four years and saw next to the second reactor, Chicago Pile-2, that was devel how nuclear research has impacted not just them, but scores oped solely in Red Gate Woods. Plot M is nearby and of Nevada's "downwinders." Western Shoshone elder Car identified by a large "tombstone"-it is believed to be the rie Dann recounted a tale of the Shoshone families who Earth's first nuclear waste dump. were never informed of the The Chicago wilderness nuclear experilnents in their and Nevada's Great Basin backyard. They witnessed are only a few of war's the first mushroom cloud environmental casualties. on the horizon and hid in When World War II began, ditches along the road the Department of War in thinking the world was end tensified its research into ing. Considering the num chemical warfare and de ber of Shoshone and others cided against conducting who contracted cancer and tests in populated areas. ultimately died, the thought Utah's Dugway Proving has come frighteningly Ground was born. I hiked true for many. near this isolated place only I spent much of my a few years ago. The high 1970s childhood in the winds and sand dunes stand forests of Palos Park just in stark contrast to Salt Lake south of Chicago. Red Gate City some 85 miles to the Woods was a place to pic northeast. I tried to block nic and explore. Little did out of my mind the experi I know that years earlier it ments that took place here was the secret birthpla,ce and instead focused on the of the atomic bomb. Red beautiful ghostly environ Gate Woods was a legally ment. Dugway was where protected· area for preser biological warfare research vation purposes under the on animals took place, Illinois Forest Preserve Dis where flame-throwers and trict Act of 1913. This stat other implements of war ute of the Forest Preserve were developed. While Nazi District strictly forbade Germany carried out its transfer of the land for any holocaust, wartime in the other use-unless of course US brought a holocaust to the US needed a place to the wild. secretly research the effects Dugway continued op of radiation on animals erations through the Ko while building an atomic rean and Vietnam wars. Page 8 Earth First! Samhain 2001 In March 1968, 6,400 sheep were killed just outside In the wake of the Gulf War, 13 countries submitted Dugway in Skull Valley, their deaths linked to a deadly environmental claims totaling $48 billion to the United nerve agent called VX. The incident caused international Nations. The United Nations Security Council is now uproar and coincided with the birth of the modern processing the claims with the help of leading environ environmental movement. Still, Dugway survived and in mental experts. The Iraqi government will have to pay the the 1990s was modernized out of concern to stay abreast bill, but it is unclear whether they will be able to submit a of toxic agents being developed in Iraq, Southeast Asia counter claim against America's unprecedented carpet and Afghanistan. bombing of their Chemical wariare country. This is the experiments have first time an inter been carried out on national entity was many of our wild ever charged with lands. Places with the assessment and low human popu valuation of envi lations, like Utah, ronmental damage Nevada and Alaska, from war. have been hit hard The greatest en est. Nerve and mus vironmental threat tard gas rockets, as that current con well as germ and flicts pose will be gas-laden artillery, how they acceler were literally forgot ate development of ten for years-with new technology some "stored" on without regard to top of a frozen lake precautions like in Alaska. President extensive safety Eisenhower under testing. Many tech stood the contradic ~ nologies currently tions of war when under develop he proclaimed in World's first nuclear waste dump "Plot M," Red Gate Woods, Palos Park, Illinois ment like biotech 1958, "The problem vaccinations, with defense is how far you can go without destroying from nanotech weapons and robotic warriors could see deploy within what you are trying to protect from without." ment ahead of any considerations for their lasting impact War research and experiments continue to exact a toll on the planet. The world could repeat the mistakes it made on the planet's environment. Actual warfare remains in the past with nuclear proliferation-only this time the the most visible form of environmental destruction. The unprecedented power of advanced self-replicating tech aerial bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO created signifi nologies could cause even wider destruction. cant environmental damage, including the destruction The sentiment in the US today is directed more at of a chemical factory in Pancevo. For the first time, the retribution and less on caution. The terrorist attacks of environmental damage caused by war received an un September 11 have sparked outrage, but also a national precedented level of international attention. Similarly, reflection on why the US is so disliked in the world. One when Iraq set fire to Kuwait's oil fields at the end of the should remember that today's movements for social and Persian Gulf War, the environmental damage was dis environmental justice are global. cussed worldwide. While the current political climate may make it difficult The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and its aftermath resulted in for activists in the US to be critical of the Bush the adoption of a resolution in 1992 by the United Nations administration's environmental policies, other countries General Assembly on "the protection of the environment are not so hampered. in time of conflict." The resolution stated that" destruction The times ahead present many challenges, but they of the environment not justified by military necessity and also offer opportunities to work internationally on these carried out wantonly is clearly contrary to international and other issues. The world may, for the first time in law." Then in 1993 and 1994 the International Committee history, see the rise of a popular global peace, environ of the Red Cross prepared guidelines for the protection of mental and social justice movement that spans issues, the environment during armed conflict that have since cultures and borders. If good can come from war, then been included in military manuals. this will be it.
H'licll/liiiiSS so 1\'WIIS, we sc/doni pull lie hlunn:.i11 /lie risllt fJiucc, we just find a Will't'llienl SCllfh'Xout. \V,- just like to kill I IIi nss 1l'l iCil \\'C u rc fi'u-.; I ru I cd 0\ 't 'I f!m/JI ellis II i November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 9 AMERICA'S GREENS RALLY TO FLAG BY ALEXANDER CocKBURN First Amendment defenders and defend the safety of all, we will refrain from ers of immigrants have stronger spines participating in activities surrounding AND jEFFREY ST. CLAIR and principles than the the planned World Bank/IMF meet Hot to present themselves as supposep defenders of the environment ings. We are also sharing our staunch flag-waggers, some of at the Sierra Club. Are we now to expect concerns with the leilding organiza America's premier environmental or the Sierra Club to endorse drilling in the tions responsible for planning ganizations have disgracefully Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as nec and coordinating these activities." ditched their principles. essary "for national security?" The Ruckus Society, the direct ac TheSierraClub,America'soldestgreen The Berkeley-based International tion training group involved in group, has abruptly turned off its cam Rivers Network (IRN), which has been many demonstrations against the paign against the anti-environmental the main bulwark against the Three World Trade Organization announced program of the Bush administration. Gorges dam in China, announced that that it was canceling its training camp, "In response to the attacks on it was suspending its planned nation- to be held in Middleburgh, Virginia- America," an internal scheduled as prepara memo goes, "we are tion for the next World shifting our communi BEAUTIFUL, FOR SPAClOUS SKIES Bank meeting. This cations strategy for the camp was to be cospon immediate future . sored by the Institute We have taken all of for Policy Studies, Jobs our ads off of the air; with Justice and Global halted our phone Exchange. All of these banks; removed any organizations backed material from the web out, saying that now is that people could per not the time for such ceive as anti-Bush, and activity. we are taking steps to The Rainforest Action prevent the Sierra Network, based in San Club from being per Francisco, called for the ceived as controversial cancellation of the pro during this crisis. For test and said that in the now we are going to event it were to stop aggressively push go forward it would not ing our agenda and will participate. cease bashing Presi Let's get this straight. dent Bush." If all resisters to Bush's The memo then in political program were structs club staffers on to follow this shame- how to respond to the ;; ful exhibition by these press: "If you are asked ~green groups, we about what this terror ~ would see peace groups ism does to the Sierra "'declining to protest Club's agenda, please ~ against nuclear attacks respond simply by say ~-on Iraq and armed ing that right now the invasion of Afghani public needs to focus stan. We would see civil on comforting each rights activists sitting other and strengthening our wide protest against Morgan on their hands as racial and religious national security to deal with the cri Stanley, one of the dam's principle profiling is used to persecute people sis at hand." financiers. Morgan Stanley had SO of Middle Eastern descent. Defend Imagine if this craven posture spreads floors of offices in the World Trade ers of Palestinian rights would say across the public interest movement. Center. IRN also announced that "out that for the time being they wouldn't We could expect First Amendment de of respect for the victims of this disas protest · the use of US fenders to say that they were abandon ter, with understanding of the strategic Apache helicopters against civilians in ing efforts to protect the Bill of Rights. difficulties in conyeying to a shocked West Bank towns and villages. We could expect groups defending im media and public qur messages regard What nonsense! Principles are never migrants to say that henceforth the ing the World Bank and IMF, with more important than when it Immigration and Natur The plan is BY RoGER FEATHERSTONE peaceful. We are as pay a About four dozen defenders of the to walk to the visit to the UA Mirror Lab. The flag reads, "Occupied States of America." Earth meet on a school playground. Steward Observatory Mirror Lab, where am selected. This is a bit of a deviation They come in all shapes and sizes and mirrors are being made for the Colum- from my original plan to join the fes most colors. We've heard "President" bus telescope on Mount Graham, serve tivities, take a few photos and other Bush's pleas for citizens to return to the indictment to at least one of the wise occupy the sidelines. However, their normal routines and remain calm. perpetrators, chant, sing, get our point it's been a long time since I've been }Jeing the upstanding folks that we across and then leave. No one plans to back in this saddle and as we begin our are, we readily comply with our do anything to risk arrest. walk to the Mirror Lab, I'm starting to "president's" wishes. Some of the group decide to wear feel pumped about the whole affair. It's Columbus Day and the anniver bandannas over their faces. If you know We get to the Mirror Lab and walk in sary of 509 years of terrorist activities anything about the Mount Graham the front door. None of our indictees against North America's First Nations story, you know that UA does not are visible and as the inside door is and its other inhabitants open, some continue the (you know: the rocks, trees, search. Mirror Lab person waters and other living nel get excited and begin things). A plan is hatched, shoving folks back through and we are ready. the door. The scene is tense We are headed to the Uni for a minute or two until the versity of Arizona (U A) cam Mirror Lab folks calm down. pus in Tucson to deliver a Drums are beating, whistles criminal indictment to UA are blowing, folks are chant personnel responsible for ing and everything seems desecrating Mount Graham cool. Then the UA police in a pitiful attempt to make show up and ask us to leave. money and feel important. We comply. Not fast enough The telescope project on it seems as the UA police Mount Graham is the push us out the door. We epitome of what Columbus regroup on the street as re Day represents. The indict inforcements from the Tuc mentchargesUAandknown son Police Department perpetrators-Steward Ob (TPD) show up. servatory Associate Director Buddy conduct itself in the manner an insti Buddy Powell arrives with a police Powell, Peter Stritmatter, Michael tution of higher learning is supposed escort, and I serve Buddy with the in Cusanovich, Father George Coyne, Fa to-unless universities are supposed dictment and engage in a little polite ther Charles Polzer and former UA em to routinely commit the seven deadly banter. This wears thin quickly and ployee and all around bad guy Steve sins, that is! We have the usual assort after taking a rain check on his offer of Emerine-with crimes against the ment of signs and banners, including sitting down to have a cup of coffee to Earth, the Apache, Yaqui and all indig some attached to poles donated from discuss his concept of what real science enous peoples. It orders them to "ad someone's garden. Standard fare, no is, I rejoin the rest of the group. here to all environmental, cultural and big deal. The cops are getting restless and religious freedom laws previously vio The group looks for a volunteer who order us to leave the vicinity of the lated and to cease and desist all con knows at least a little about the issue to Mirror Lab. They tell us that we can go struction on Dzil nchaa sian and vacate serve the indictment. Since I don't to the UA Mall and have our say in an all surrounding areas immediately." duck quickly enough and fit the bill, I area designated for free speech. Again, Page 12 Earth First! Samhain 2001 have a right and a duty to express themselves freely by rrotesting and to be treated with respect and dig nity while doing so, approaches me and a friend. "Would you like to stay or [would yqu rather] go?" he asks. "That de pends," I answer, "what are you planning to do?" He doesn't an- Without warning, the cops start tackling people. swer. "Can we we comply. take another person over there with Halfway to our destination, we are the video camera," we ask pointing to suddenly surrounded by a large mob one of our photographers. "Sure," he of UA and TPD officers. They begin to says, and we step under the tape and herd us into a corner and tell us we are leave the corral. being" detained for questioning." Sev A moment later even more cops show eral folks that were leaving the dem up, this time with paddy wagons and onstration were pulled back across the plastic handcuffs. It's now apparent street against their will (note that at that they intend to arrest everyone this time no one has been told they are within the corral. We've been duped, under arrest) and then manhandled to and we didn't see it coming. Within the ground and handcuffed. Those the hour, 30 people have been arrested. that are wearing bandannas are or dered to remove them. Those that don't comply in stantly have them ripped from their faces. All are stunned, and the mood quickly turns tense and ugly. Here's the scene now: A yellow po lice ribbon ropes . us off from free dom. The people roughed up by the police lay on the ground in one corner of our corral with All are charged with felony rioting. cops hanging heavy over them. The Some are also charged with aggravated rest of us sit or stand in small groups assault and resisting arrest. They are trying to figure out what is going on. arraigned and sent to jail for process All we know is that the UA, as they've ing. It's six a.m. the next day before the done in the past, has falsely accused us last one is released. of assault, saying that several Mirror Then the media hits. "Authorities Lab employees were hurt, one bad arrested 3Q people on ~ioting charges enough to be taken to the hospital. after they stormed a University of Cops surround us and crowds of by Arizona building Friday and fought standers gather. with officers who tried to subdue A UAdetective, schooled in the now them," blares one newspaper article. out-of-fashion notion that citizens continued on next page November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 13 need to be as non-threatening as pos Columbus Day Police Violence Continued sible while still allowing us to get the point across; Bandannas, I go both continued from previous page be told at the start of an action, no ways on that one. I understand the A quote from UA's police chief says, matter how benign, that the possibil- ·· reason for wearing them, but right "They acted as a group and identi ity exists for arrests to happen. Legal now might not be the best time. fied themselves as part of a group by and other support arrangements Why did they let the white boys wearing similar brown masks. They should ,be made now more than ever! go?: Dunno, but as I told someone forced their way into a from the media who asked building. They carried long me that question, "I guess sharpened sticks that could UA didn't figure the pic have caused serious injury. ture of a bunch of big They assaulted university white men on the ground employees. When they in handcuffs was the im were removed from one age they wanted to get building, they began walk out." Am I glad they let us ing through campus, still go? Mostly, but still there concealing their identities lingers the wish that I'd and still carrying the sharp stayed ... ened sticks." Roger Featherstone is with Remember the garden the Mount Graham Coali stakes and the bandannas? tion and until recently di UA's mouthpiece said," All rected GREEN, the of us are in such a height Grassroots Environmental ened state of sensitivity Effectiveness Network. He 's that certainly when you see worked to protect Mount a large number of people in This is a riot? Graham since his early EF! masks moving through the days many years ago. It's campus environment it is discon Bandannas and Poles: UA used a real been a long time since he's written for certing to say the least." cheap shot, but we gave them the the Journal, and he's damn proud to Within a week, all charges against angle. Lesson: Poles and other props submit this article. the arrestees were dropped. Thoughts and Lessons So You've Gone and Gotten Yourself Arrested Timing: The UA and TPD say we had no right to protest in light of the A Citizen Guide to that First Time in Jail September World Trade Center and s Pentagon attacks. Yeah right! The . . Bushites are attempting to ram through • . ancient one-size-fits-all beauties with Congress every wet dream the BY UNCLE RAMON little or no snap in the elastic. T-shirts wingnuts on the far right have had "Hi. My name is Sherri. I killed my are issued in lieu of bras and jumpsuits from voodoo economics to defining husband." cover everything, or are intended to. actively defending our natural heri With this greeting, Peggy Sue M Usually the panties are two sizes too tage as terrorism. While the terrorist ______, an artiSt-in-residence at big and the jump suits two sizes too attacks in September were horrible, ______University and Jennifer small. If you lower the straps to relieve similar acts of terrorism are being per P , a schoolteacher from Iowa, the pressure on your crotch, a guard's petrated every day against nature. Les were welcomed to their first of many voice, usually male, will blare through son: Be sensitive to the current mood, jails in central Idaho. Since most such the loudspeaker in your cell. "Miz (your but don't let it get in the way of pro facilities in rural areas have separate name); pull your straps up." After do tecting Mother Earth. Let's make sure (but equal) space for only four or five ing so, you should wait a few minutes life goes on. female occupants at any given time, before trying it again; he has other Charges: First time I've ever seen they spend a good part of their six cells to scan on his video monitors peaceful demonstrators attacked by month sentences for hugging trees doesn't he? Nevertheless, you and your police and then charged with rioting! being transferred from one jail to an cellmates are the only girls in town so However, it won't be the last. Crimi other. Thus, they became well versed don't expect much relief before again nals and corporations will take every on those issues that women every hearing, "Hey (your name). I said pull advantage of the current mood to where need to kilow when contem those straps up!" destroy as much as they can and reap plating doing time. There are three: This game can be played for hours. the profits. Lesson: No one is doing A. Underwear. Some jails will let you B. Going number one and number this because it's easy. Hang in there, keep your flowered cottons, but the two. Also known in some circles as little keep your head down, don't be stupid Victoria's Secret stuff is a no-no. Oth potty and big potty. Using sheets and and move forward. Everyone should ers require that you wear their panties, pillowcases stolen from the laundry Page 14 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Think of having a seat in the wrong section of a soc cer match in Brazil with you wearing the wrong color shirt. Here are a few sugges tions on how to cope: A. Don't offer to shake hands. Besides the six rea sons you can think of, it's simply considered bad form. B. Don't sit until every body else is seated. More jail fights than you care to know about start with the loud declara tion: "Hey you! That's my seat!" C. When it's your tum you may read the news paper. Just remember to alwaysfold it neatly when you're done so the next . guy can pretend he bought it at the donut shop, just as you did. D. Playing cards eases a lot of in-cell tension. Bet ter still, perform card tricks. If pressed, always showthemhowit'sdone. E. You may call your lawyer (collect) from your cell phone crew, and with due attention to the (that's a cell, not cellular). It is prudent video camera mounted high on the to have worked out some form of code wall, a semi-private bathroom can be ahead of time. For example, one should erected. That's the good news. The bad be able to drawl, casually, "Hi Harry; news is that excessive use of toilet pa how ya doin'? Nah, I'm OK; this place per is considered a monumental waste ain't so bad. I'm lucky to be sharing a of taxpayer's money and many jails cell with a pretty nice bunch of guys." have weekly demonstrations in the Your lawyer should interpret this to proper way to wipe. The general rule of mean that you're terrified, and he thumb seems to be two sheets for little should sell your first-born daughter potty and four for big potty. The good into slavery to spring you. news is that this saves a few trees. By F. The subject of sex may come up. the way, those demonstrations are Try to change the subject. sometimes conducted by male guards, G. The subject of non-consensual fully clothed, and opportunities to tum sex may come up. See "F" above. them red with embarrassment abound. Finally, dear reader, never forget that C. Feminine hygiene. I don't know, every one of the inmates you meet is and I don't want to know. innocent. I don't mean innocent be For the most part, men face differ fore the law, I mean 100 percent inno ent problems, although the subject cent period. Even Sherri, the self-con of toilet paper is a shared one. (The fessed husband-killer. After all, her penalty for using too much is, you husband started that argument, didn't guessed it ... they're slow to replace he? Therefore, an appropriate response the roll.) Men in jail must deal with to an opening line like hers would be .l :11er men in jail, some of them with to say what our schoolteacher from hangovers, some of them still drunk, Iowa said: "You killed your husband? many of them with bleeding wounds. Really? Way cool." November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 15 'f9~tin~an Vphill 5a-H-Ie Free Speaks From Prison receives the most media attention. And regardless of how BY GEORGETIE AND TURTLE you look at that, the one thing you have to acknowledge is The world is dying and all most people do is kickback and nothing has shown to be more effective drawing attention watch, but for some this is not true. There is the ELF, ALF, EZLN, to an issue. Blank Panthers, MOVE and of course Earth First!ers who have EF!J: Why was Romania Chevrolet the target on June 16, 2000? decided to fight for justice, respect and protection of the natural Free: Romania was an easy target to strike. It also had the and human world. type of vehicles we were looking for-large trucks. And it feff"Free" Luers is one individual who put his freedom on the conveniently happened to be a large dealership with line. This summer, Free was sentenced to 22 years and eight several different locations. months in prison for taking part in an action at a SUV dealership EF!J: How did you get caught? in Eugene; Oregon. Learn what happened and a bit about why. Free: We were tailed by three different unmarked vehicles. We made several turns and drove all around the city trying EF!J: How did you get involved in to pick out a tail. The cops kept environmental activism? switching off, so one car was never Free: Originally, I was radicalized behind us long. I must say though, by anti-authoritarian, anarchist we both had this weird feeling so beliefs, as well as animal rights. I my advice is always trust your in got involved in environmentalism stincts. Cuz, as I have learned, just first in 1997, I was working for because you're paranoid doesn't CalPIRG and canvassing for the mean they are not behind you. Sierra Club. I was exposed to a lot of EF!f: Is there anything you would information I hadn't known before. have done. differently? It was then I started to prioritize the Free: I've thought a lot about this. environmental cause. I'm sure that I could change some EF!J: What motivated you to things and not have gotten caught. participate in direct action and But really I think getting caught and eventually adopt arson as a tactic? getting 22 plus years has done a lot Free: Actually, I've been involved of good. I know that sounds ironic, in direct action since I was 15. but the mainstream media has That was when I broke my first cop been all over it and surprisingly car window with a slingshot. I !l sympathetic. I've been given a forum think I've always known that [ to help radicalize people, to bring power cedes nothing without the dire situation our planet and we demand. That the only way to ~ are in to the attention of those who bring change is to fight for it. ~ wouldnormallyignoreit. I wouldn't As for using fire: It was ~ have this opportunity had things appropriate for the situation and worked out differently. for the goal we wanted to achieve. EF!J: Days before your trial was to EF!f: To the critics and nay-sayers, those who think arson begin, a second arson took place at Romania Chevrolet causes more harm than good, what would you say regarding the destroying more than 30 SUVs. Some have criticized the use of arson as an effective means of sabotage? strategic timing of the action and the impact it could have Free: I don't think anything I can say will change minds. had on your sentencing. What are your thoughts? I think many critics see using fire as morally wrong. But Free: Actually, I just wrote my critique on that action. I what I take into consideration on the issue is whether there think that without a doubt it added to my sentence. And are other alternatives? Are they effective? When the an- .' I think that some things could have been done different. At swer is no, then you have to up the ante. The use of fire does the same time, I was able to use it in my defense seeing as two things. 1. It destroys the target-which not only stops ,' how it was 10 times more extreme. whatever destructive practice it was engaged in, it also All in all, I have my issues with the action, but I am causes severe economic damage to those responsible. 2. It continued on page 47 TJ,e;,ye, a~ Tho~e;, Who Wait foY Mind~ While;, Page 16 Earth First! Samhain 2001 During the course of the trial several BY FREE prosecution witnesses proved beneficial The time is 12:30 a.m. Me and Critter to me. The security guard at Romania pass a cigarette back and forth while (the "victim") testified that he was discussing the details. There is a sense never in any danger, nor did he fear of nervousness. My intuition is telling for his safety. In the recording of the me something, and I say a silent prayer 911 tape, the operator asks if it is safe to any spirit guides. for him to go check on the fire. He says We're on our way to the target, be yes and does. ing extra cautious. There always seems One of the firefighters testified that to be a car behind us, but never the the fire was eventually extinguished same one. Wereachourdrop-offpoint. with the equivalent of a dry-chem fire No sign of anyone. extinguisher. The ATF agent called to We make our way on foot-just two the stand stated that there were no college kids out for a night walk. The injuries and that the fire did not ex target is a truck dealership selling tend beyond the vehicles. commercial light trucks. The goal is to I had more potential witnesses, but place two incendiaries under two of all of them were considered suspects them. Nothing big, just a small fire to the strategy used by the prosecution draw some attention to the dangerous to keep a few very beneficial witnesses plight of global warming and pollution. off the stand. Down under the truck, my heart is The judge had his verdict in less _ pounding. Wow! I'mreallydoingthis. than an hour. I stood before him as he Why? Then I remember being a kid considered me an unfeeling uncaring growing up in Los Angeles, having to human being with no regard for life. I stay inside some days because the smog was fm~nd guilty of 11 ofthe 13 charges, was too bad to go outside. I was six the being dropped fucking years old, and I couldn't play outside because the air was hazardous to my health. It has gotten worse since! I flick my bic. That was 15 months ago. I am now a prisoner at Oregon's only maximum security prison. The waiting and all the hearings that came before trial has been the most stressful time of my life. Originally, I was arrested on criminal mischief. When I got to my first trial, I had accumulated 10 charges. By the second trial I had 13, including Arson 1 and Conspiracy to commit Arson 1 with Persons Unknown. Trial was an uphill battle, the judge denying every one of my motions. But my attorney had hope. The theory behind my defense was that in the Tyree Oil case there were no witnesses, the fingerprint found on the "bomb" didn't match me and all the forensic evidence found at my warehouse was inconclusive. In the W Romania case, we based our argument 1 on the statutory language of Arson 1. $ t November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 17 action explained his viewpoint as that of no compromise. BY MARY REED "For me, a big part of it is everyone talks about public Members of Hock-Hocking Earth First! and the Buckeye accountability. This is, unfortunately, a beautiful example Forest Council blocked a timber sale on Ohio's Zaleski of lack of public accountability. In this case, there is no State Forest for eight days in September, the first action legal way to deal with this, unless you can prove with your of its kind in the state. own resources that endangered species are present there. The morning of August 31, loggers were surprised to So you either shut up and let it go on or you go out there arrive at a "soft blockade" of nearly 20 people blocking and stand on the frontlines." the road that accesses the 292-acre timber sale, which is The interactions between the treesitters, support crew, about three times larger than the average state forest loggers and Division of Forestry employees remained cour timber sale. Diyision of Forestry law enforcement and teous during the action. On September 7, the treesit ended Ohio State Highway Patrol agents arrived and when the Division scattered the soft blockade. The logging trucks of Forestry and log continued down the road a few feet, only to be gers arrived ready to met by a ditch and a hanging basket suspended cut a new access road from a traverse line and held in place by a log to the sale, bypass lashed across the road. It was impossible for the ing the blockade. trucks to continue without harming the activ "Three miles of ist suspended in the basket. road is bad enough, Susan Heitker, State Forest Coordinator for the we couldn't stand Athens-based Buckeye ..., to see additional Forest Council, was in ~road cut through the basket while two ~ this state forest," other activists, Mr. Band ~ said Buckeye Forest Dirtboy, were sitting in Council Attorney tree platforms on either Joe Hazelbaker. side of the traverse line. The amount of law enforcement present on the last day "We took to the trees of the treesit exceeded any measures necessary to handle because we've been try the situation. In response to a handful of nonviolent ing for eight years to protesters, the Division of Forestry rallied agents from express our concerns the FBI, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, a SWAT with the timber sale team, Vinton County Sheriff's Department and high program to no avail," ranking Ohio State Highway Patrol officers. said Heitker, "The Di Since the activists came down, the Division of Forestry vision of Forestry was confiscated gear and cut down the two platform trees, giving us lip service." charging the treesitters a $150 "stump fee" in a contract The Ohip Division of area where the penalty for damaging or cutting the Forestry has no public input period and does not require an wrong tree carries a $2 fine per tree. "Those trees are Environmental Impact Statement, as the federal logging worth thousands of dollars, so to say that they incurred program does. Heitker addressed these concerns to the expenses in cutting them is absolutely ridiculous. The many well-wishers and reporters who stopped by during the idea that they had to cut them and now they're charging eight day action: "The Division of Forestry has violated its us. is absolutely ridiculous," maintained Hazelbaker. own mandate to manage state forests for wildlife, recre A number of environmental groups are currently work ation, timber harvesting and soil and water quality. They ing with Ohio Senator Robert Hagan's office to draft and have neglected to follow their own department's Indiana introduce legislation that would enact a temporary mora bat strategy by not surveying for the bat and cutting during torium on all Ohio state forest logging. its summer roosting season. Also, their logging haul road Thanks to the EF! Direct Action Fund for supporting crosses one of the two backpack trails in the state forest .' this action and getting it off the ground. system. The Division of Forestry has shown a bias for timber For more information, contact the Buckeye Forest harvesting. This is only one example." Council at 11315 Jackson Dr, The Plains, OH 45780; The Indiana bat is a federally endangered species and ' (740) 797-7200; www.buckeyeforestcouncil.org. the Zaleski State Forest may be home to the bat as well as Editors' Note: As the Journal goes to print, Susan Heitker was Ohio's endangered timber rattlesnake. sentenced to 30 days, while Dirtboy received seven days in jail. Chris Crews, who provided ground support during the Contact information is included on page 61 . Page 18 Earth First! Samhain 2001 ?:)atJid eha.m 1J. th -/haxxam Wrongful Death Settlement Reached Gypsy. No criminal charges were filed against Ammons. No civil trial will sort out those circumstances. The lawsuit's financial settlement was undisclosed, but the remainder of the terms address the tragic story and the .desire to prevent future incidents. The 135-foot tree that struck Gypsy will remain where it fell, and a 100~ foot buffex: will prevent any nearby logging. A memorial will be erected on PL property, somewhere between the fallen tree and where State Route 36 joins US Highway 101. A "community roundtable" will also be formed to address issues surrounding the oft-dangerous logging protests. It will include the AUsbrooks, as well as David "Gypsy" Chain ·· representatives ofPL and the Humboldt County environmental community. BY ALMOND Humboldt County law enforcement On October 13, David "Gypsy" will be asked to participate. Chain's family settled a lawsuit out of The AUsbrooks' attorney said he is court against Pacific Lumber (PL) days disappointed that PL "didn't do the before the case was to go to trial. The right thing up front." However, he said civil lawsuit by Gypsy's parents, Cindy PL representatives dealing with the case and David AUsbrooks, alleged that PL seem to have shown good faith. "Let's and its parent company, Houston give them the benefit of the doubt." based Maxxam, were reckless and re Shunka, an activist who was with sponsible for Gypsy's murder. Gypsy the day he died, said the settle Gypsy was killed on September 17, ment completed a circle started three 1998, while protesting the cut-and-run years ago when Ammons killed Gypsy. logging of ancient redwood forests on Shunka hopes that the roundtable PL property in Northern California. might lead to a policy change that He was the first person that Maxxam could avoid such accidents in the succeeded in killing. future. Protests in the Mattole River On September 16, 1998, near Griz valley, southwest of Scotia and PL zly Creek State Park, Earth First! ac headquarters, reached a climax in the tivists, not including Gypsy, talked Spring. PL, its contractors and neigh at length with PL logger A.E. Ammons boring ranches have filed a SLAPP about their concerns that ma"-"bl,ed lawsuit against dozens of forest activ murrelets were nesting in the area ists. The lawsuit seeks lost wages and where trees were being felled. hardship due to the blockading of The next day Gypsy and friends con logging roads by activists, thus hold fronted Ammons. The logger became ing up timber operations in the area. enraged, chased the activists away and "We're still here fighting on, Gypsy, continued cutting trees. The last tree and you are still with us too." that Ammons cut killed 24-year-old November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 19 Gons VAIIjEY TREESIT ATTAcKED BY ODF One Activist Injured, 20 Arrested Defonding Oregon sTillamook State Forest their video camera was confiscated. Ridge spent almost 48 hours trapped with minimal food and water and no applicable climbing gear. Bright lights were focused on him throughout the night to prevent him from sleeping. At one point, loggers began to fell the "' tree in which he was perched. ~ In fear for his life, Ridge jumped to g another tree. The Clatsop County ~ Sheriff's Department then cut all the ~ surrounding trees, thus isolating him. ~ A climber was sent up the tree in pur [ suit and lopped off the branches below ~ as Ridge free-climbed higher into the ~ canopy. The climt?erwas ordered to cut ~ the branch that Ridge was on. How ~ ever, the climber refused, knowing that "' to do so would seriously injure or kill him. At one point, a sharpshooter Some of what's at stake: a seven-foot-diameter Sitka Sprnce in Area IV pointed at Ridge. After being exposed to constant noise public notice before commencing with for almost 48 hours, Ridge passed out. BY SOLEDAD logging in Gods Valley, ODF and Chris He plummeted 60 feet to the forest During the first weekend of October, tian Futures logging company went in floor, was arrested and taken to the the Oregon Department of Forestry lE~ss than a week later with a heavy hospital. Ridge suffered from a broken (ODF) had their most violent reaction police presence to begin logging the pelvis, broken ribs, a collapsed lung and yetto the Gods Valley treesit in Oregon's oldest trees in Area III of the sale. possible head injuries. Tillamook State Forest, leading to more Afterward, Tillamook State Forester In an emergency call to action, 7 S than 20 arrests and the hospitalization Mark Lab hart told the media, "Its beau people gathered on October 6 at Gods of one man. tiful now. It looks like a park." Valley on less than 24 hours' notice. It The outcry over the desecration of Activists were outraged by the actions was a diverse crowd with about half of Oregon's state forests became loud of ODF and expressed their shock at this the folks being local supporters. People enough to break through the walls of betrayal. In response to ODF's lies, the arrived from as far south as Ashland, the corporate media in the Spring, with first treesit in Oregon's state forests ap Oregon, to demand protection of our a vibrant coalition forming between peared 75 feet up a 100-year-old hem last remaining temperate coastal urban and rural activists, including the lock in Area IV. Thistreesitsoon became rainforests and to protest the violence Cascadia Forest Alliance (CFA) and the a small village with three treesits, two in inflicted upon nonviolent protesters. Hard Rain Alliance. The poster-child · Area IV and one in sale at this point was Acey Line Thin, a Area II. timber sale in Gods Valley targeting On October 3, some of the oldest remaining trees in ODF began logging the Tillamook State Forest. in Area II, cutting After several weeks of negotiations within five feet of a with CFA and the Oregon Wildlife Fed treesit. Then on Oc eration and under the threat of direct tober 4, an activist action, ODF "promised" to delay the known as Ridge who timber sale until local "focus groups" was concerned for had met, expressed their concerns and the safety of the prepared their comments for the treesi tter, was department's 10-year implementation trapped in a nearby plan. These focus groups were forbid tree and surrounded den to discuss the Acey sale specifically, by law enforcement. but they recommended that no older Three women at trees be logged in Oregon's state forests. tempting to docu Despite promises to consider these rec ment his treatment ommendations and to give adequate were arrested and Page 20 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Sixteen people, age 17 to 57, joined arms and marched defiantly across the closure line. They were arrested in brutal fashion and held until October 8- many refusing to give their names. Two treesits remain in Area IV of the Acey Line Thin sale, and logging in Gods Val ley continues. The protests result in part from the lack of voice that Ore go- Cops up protesters at October 6 nians have in the management of our Clatsop County Sheriff's handling of state lands. There is no state land the protesters. equivalent to the National Environ- It is not enough to deal with the mental Policy Act to regulate timber brutality against the protesters. We sales. There is no public comment must reform the Oregon Department period for state sales and no way to of Forestry's Management Plan and appeal them. The Endangered Spe- the Forest Practices Act. The devo cies Act is one of the only laws that tion, protests and action seen at the applies on Oregon state land and a Acey Line Thin sale in Gods Valley "take" of a threatened species is al- will continue until the public has a most impossible to prove. ODF al- real say in what happens on Oregon's lows logging on slopes steeper than state lands. 70 percent, clearcuts up to 160 acres Please contact Governor Kitzhaber and only mandates a 25-foot buffer at (503) 378-3111. In light of recent for salmon-bearing streams. With events, the legal defense fund needs rules like this, it is no surprise that the your help now! For more information protests and coalitions formed to pro- or if you would like to make a finan tect our state land are speaking out as cial contribution, send checks (pay loudly as they are. able to CFA) to Cascadia Forest Alii- The violent reaction to these peace- ance, POB 4946, Portland, OR 97208; ful protests by ODF and the Clatsop (503) 241-4879; www.cascadia County Sheriff's Department is a forestalliance.org. frightening sign of the loss of civil liberties and regard for safety that is to come in this era of hysteria over "terrorists threats." The Clatsop County Sheriff's Department has jus tified their actions by inferring that to protest in this time of "national emergency" is un-American. Our government continually uses Vio lence and threats of Violence to intimi date nonviolent protesters and people of color. We must loudly protest this illogical abstraction and its unjust and brutal effects. We demand that Oregon Gover nor John Kitzhaber take action. We want an immediate halt to all log ging in Gods Valley; an end to log ging mature forests on all state land; all charges against protesters of the Acey Line Thin sale to be dropped and a criminal investigation into the Oregon Department of Forestry and November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 21 Judi Bari v. the FBI Delayed Until April a clear example of this, as the two nonviolent Earth First! organizers were targeted for engaging in consti tutionally protected First Amend ment activities to defend the forests of Northern California. Another example is the anti-global ization movement, which has been staging huge protests across the globe to fight undemocratic and oppressive .economic policies, beginning in Se attle at the World Trade Organization meeting in 1999. According to the motion for delay: "Polls taken on Sep tember 12 indicate that 78 percent of Americans are prepared to accept dras tic reductions. in civil liberties so that the authorities can 'solve' this matter. One after another, conservative poli the hardest, especially in light of the ticians have blamed the 'leniency' of BY ALICIA LITTLETREE AND STRONGWOOD FBI's track record of falsely branding the Church Committee in 'tying the OnSeptember 14, US District Judge radicals as terrorists iri order to un hands of law enforcement' as a cause Claudia Wilken granted the plain dermine their movements and orga of the failure of the authorities to tiffs' emergency motion for a trial nizations. Bari and Cherney's case is anticipate the 9/11 attack. Simply put, continuance in the Judi Bari v. the FBI bombing lawsuit. The new trial date is April 8, 2002. The reason for the delay was the attack of September 11 (9/11) and the ensuing war fever, making it difficult or impossible to get a fair jury trial against the FBI in the immediate fu ;ture. The FBI, for all its many well publicized faults, is now almost uni versally seen as our first line of defense against terrorists. "In the aftermath and media coverage of the events," the motion says, "the public has been seeing and hearing that the FBI is the lead agency conducting the investiga tion of the attack. The FBI agents are truly the brothers and sisters of the American public and, beyond that, the FBI are seen as the saviors of the American people and the vehicle of resolution and retribution." Dennis Cunningham, lead counsel for Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, said following Judge Wilken's ruling that ,he had mixed feelings about the delay. "We were ready to get it on," he said, "but that's unthinkable in view of what's happened." Most disturbing in the aftermath of 9/11 is the pervasive trend to sac rifice civil rights to so-called "secu rity." Rolling back constitutional pro tections will hit political dissidents Page 22 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Judi's car showing the blast point of the bomb below the driver's seat law enforcement (particularly the FBI) there is no way jurors will be able to are the only ones that Americans can objectively evaluate the conduct of rely upon at this time of crisis and it the FBI (or the Oakland Police Depart follows, of course, that despite any- ment, for that matter) in 1990 with thing jurors might say at voir dire, regard to the plaintiffs herein." November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 23 ity to reproduce or the drive to aggres "We need to dispel the notion that BY NrAz DoRRY sively defend a territory. Genetically the environmental movement is a The pride of the Blue Revolutionar engineered fish, on the other hand, luxury of the rich when in fact it's not. ies-genetically engineered salmon can be very similar to wild fish and It's the people's survival, especially is on trial. "Blue Revolution" is what may survive, reproduce and influence the poor people's survival," says Shiva. Elliot Entis calls his prediction "that the natural environment." In addition to aquaculture, Shiva genetic modifications will usher in a Joe Sinagra, a fisherman from has observed the genetic engineer new era of fish farming." Gloucester, Massachusetts, says, "I ing technology and its impact on En tis is the president of Aqua Bounty wouldn't be sincere if I didn't admit I agriculture. She agrees with En tis that Farms, a Massachusetts-based com had the market com genetically engineered fish is the pany with fish farms in the Canadian a cheap natural extension of aquaculture. Maritimes. The US Food and Drug if its qual And, she is concerned that just like Administration (FDA) is considering the ocean the Green Revolution of the Aqua Bounty's request to market The agribusiness industry and the subse netically engineered salmon. quent genetic modification of many In May, the Center for s without knowing all the risks and more than 60 indi and on our food sup genetically modified is being promoted essary precautions. responsible for safety of our food and our taken a "don't look, don't yet then declare safe" engineering. are no federal laws specifically governing the regulation of genetically engineered animals grown for human consumption. Some encoded in the ocean states have passed legislation aimed at salmon growth addressing the current regulatory round enabling it to vacuum. On the federal level, Con rapidly. Currently, there escaped. gressman Dennis Kucinich has spear 35 species of transgenic The proliferation of industrial-scale headed efforts to enact legislation, velopment. aquaculture has led many fishing though it has not yet yielded enough Escapement of transl~er1ic communities to take a stand against votes to win over Congress. Canada, the ocean may cause the expansion of this industry. The the Philippines and Scotland are pacts to the environment issue has taken violent turns where amongst the countries that have gered species. New studies opponents of industrial-scale shrimp started to address the issue of geneti transgenic fish are more aquaculture have been killed in parts cally engineered fish. eat more food and attract more mates of Asia and Latin America. According to Tracy Letterman, of than non-transgenic fish. Dr. Vandana Shiva, physicist, au the Center for Food Safety, with the Aqua Bounty says that their fish are thor and now with the Research In lack of relevant regulations "the FDA domesticated much like cattle, will be stitute for Science and Technology has decided to treat transgenic fish as rendered sterile and won't have a high in New Delhi, India, has worked it would new animal drugs. Given the chance of surviving in the wild. extensively with communities fight potential toxicity, allergenicity and Minnesota Sea Grant Research Spe ing against the expansion of the aquaculture diseases posed by the com cialist Anne Kapuscinski disagrees, shrimp aquaculture industry. In re mercialization of transgenic fish, we "Genetically engineered fish are much cent years, despite India's Supreme are asking that the FDA adopt a pre riskier than genetically engineered Court rulings that should bring the market regulatory review that does agricultural animals. Animals bred for expansion to a halt, the industry not ignore the potential human health domestic agriculture have lost many continues to operate and the pro and safety concerns." of their natural traits, such as the abil- tests continue to mount. continued on page 51 Page 24 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Out of at least 1,000 threatened spe BY TJALVE TORST]ENER cies, there is one I would like to men- Every day species are lost from Nor- tion in particular. Maybe the most spec wegian ecosystems for several reasons tacular threatened living creature in and by many perpetrators, but one Norwayisthedeepwatercoral,Lophelia company sticks out as the ultimate pertusa. The oldest individual corals killer-Norske Skog. still living in our waters are approxi- Norwegian ecosystems consist of an mately 8,500 years old. That means estimated 60,000 species. Of these, that these individual corals were alive only 14,637 have been subjected to a when the coastal parts of mid-Norway superficial judgment regarding living were populated by stone-age humans. conditions and survival potential. · They live still, but not for long. More than 3,000 have been catego- So far, the coral is not protected by rized as threatened with extinction. the government. Most of the reefs Norske Skog is the third largest pro- were destroyed in ducer of publication paper, having thelastfewdecades pulp and paper plants on every con- by trawlers and oil tinent, and it is the dominant and gas explora- forestry company in tion. They live at a Norway. Owned by depth of 200-2,000 Norwegian farmers, meters, but · some the company is reefs are as shallow highly adaptable to as 40 meters. Some local market trends of the surviving wherever it operates. reefs are now under In continental Eu- threat by a huge rope, where recycling natural gas pipeline of waste paper is an being planned in important issue, central Norway. NorskeSkogoperates The pipeline is in- huge paper recycling tended to fuel a plants. In Brazil, huge power plant where the conse- which will increase quences of eucalyptus plantations are Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions important, the company makes sure by five percent, making the Kyoto that all plantations have a Forest obligations impossible to reach. Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate. Norske Skog is responsible for this But in Norway, Norske Skogis so closely gasline and power station. It wants the linked with the farmers that it has power plant to feed its enormous pulp stopped all initiatives to establish FSC and paper factory in Skogn. certification. During trials several Only individuals and small inde years ago to establish FSC in Norway, pendent groups have done anything the company actively sabotaged the to try to stop either the destruction of process, bringing it to a halt. Now, at the forest or the planned destruction least 1,000 species are extinct or of the coral reefs. ------· likely to become extinct in the Weneedyourhelp. PleasetellNorske forests serving N orske Skog. These Skog to stop killing Norwegian forests 1,000 species threatened by their and to stop the pipeline destroying Norwegian Operations. our oldest living creatures. How many species it threatens in Bra- Protect Lophelia pertusa! zil, New Zealand, Australia, )bailand /. To express your outrage of this situ and Chile where it takes out millions ' •' ¥ • '• • • I The Mayagna indigenous community of Awas Tingni In 1996, Nicaragua granted a 30-year timber license won a major legal battle against the Nicaraguan govern- to the Korean company Sol de Caribe SA, clearing the ment in an international case underscoring the ties be- way for exploitation of nearly 62,000 hectares of tween native land rights and environmental protection. tropical forest claimed by the Awas Tingni. The In- In September, the Inter-American Court of Human dian Law Resource Center filed a petition before the Rights released a landmark ruling or- ~··••••••••• Inter-American Commission on deringNicaraguatorecognizeandpro- Human Rights against the govern- teet the tribe's legal rights to their ment of Nicaragua. traditional lands. The community The case was brought before the had occupied land sought by logging Inter-American Court in June of companies on the Atlantic coast of 1998. In its decision, the court stated Nicaragua for many generations. that Nicaragua violated interna- The Awas Tingni case is the first tiona! human rights law by denying such dispute to be addressed by the the community its rights to prop- Inter-American Court. Under inter- erty, adequate judicial protection national law, governments must and equal protection under the law. respect indigenous peoples' rights The court ordered the government to their traditional land. If a govern- to demarcate the traditional lands ment does not demarcate indigenous of the Awas Tingni community and peoples' land, their territorial rights to establish new legal mechanisms remain uncertain. The Nicaraguan to demarcate the traditional lands government has "exploited that of all indigenous communities confusion in its own favor," said in Nicaragua. Jim Anaya, lead counsel for the In- The decision is binding in countries dian Law Resource Center, which throughout the Americas. represented the Awas Tingni. For more information, contact Denise McVea, Indian Since the 1950s, the tribe has unsuccessfully requested Law Resource Center, 602 North Ewing St, Helena, that the Nicaraguan government demarcate its traditional Montana 59601; (406) 449-2006; (406) 449-2031 (fax); territory, fearing that loggers would decimate the land. www.indianlaw.org. Page 26 Earth First! Samhain 2001 MINNEHAHA SACRED SPRING SToPs HIGHWAY CoNSTRUCTION The flow of water from Camp was decided in May, 2000-just months earned a reputation for taking on pub Coldwater Spring, Minnesota, can fill before the project broke ground. lic agencies over water issues. MCWD a bathtub in less than three seconds. The new law protecting the spring warned MnDOT that the longer it This force may stop the multi-million came a year , later. The Minnehaha waited to investigate the road's effect dollar Highway SS/62 interchange in Creek Watershed District (MCWD) has on the spring the more expensive the Minneapolis. The Minnesota Depart cost of addressing problems would be. ment of Transportation (MnDOT) has The hydrogeology of the Coldwater halted all construction due to a new Spring area is complex. No discussion state law that protects the spring. of the highway project's effects on The spring is sacred to several Na the spring is found in the Environ tive American tribes. More than 100 mental Impact Statement for .the in people over the last two years have terchange. Some concerns have been been arrested in protests against the expressed about the impacts of rerouting of Highway SS north of groundwater seepage into the gorge the spring. These protests focused below Minnehaha Falls. on the oak trees that were cut and Attempts at compromise fell apart the park land that was lost to the this summer and lawsuits by the highway project. MCWD and other spring supporters Now, the struggle continues and the have forced MnDOT to halt construc focus has become the technical issues tion. MnDOT says that it will reopen of whether the highway interchange bids on the project if the Legislature would impair the spring. eases the law. The region around the spring Let's hope the lawmakers consider all northeast of Minneapolis was in a the ecological, financial and legal .is regulatory black hole until jurisdiction sues before creating more controversy. Minnehaha Falls November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 27 WHAT DoEs RAcisM HAvE To Do WITH Us? looks at those histories, the stranger of "nature" in Europe is that of a land BY LARRY LOHMANN the concepts seem. The ideas of "na scape for aesthetic contemplation by a "What does racism have to do with ture/' "parks/' "forests/' "carrying ca certain class. One of the most critical us?" is an unspoken question. In pacity ~ " "Gaia" and many others that forces in shaping European ideas of some white environmentalist circles, have come down to Western environ nature were paintings of landscapes even mentioning the subject of eth mentalism over the years didn't fall paintings which legitimated the prop nic discrimination can put you out from the sky. These were developed by erty and authority of whoever had paid side the pale. for them. Landscapes where This is not necessarily human workers, people who a symptom of unpro lived on and shaped the land, fessionalism or discrimina were either happy or invisible. tory or racist beliefs. I don't The word "park" has a his imagine that staff members tory. "Park" was first used to of World Wildlife Fund, designate fenced-off deer World Conservation Society preserves exclusively main or Zero Population Growth tained for a largely urban aris sign racist petitions, or that tocracy for whom hunting they go home to their part privileges were a mark of status ners, husbands or wives to and power-a phenomenon brag how many wogs or familiar to many societies. niggers they kicked that day. Later, "landscape parks" be Personal morality is not the came a fashion and mark of issue here. prestige and standing which There is no better place to spread from royalty down begin than European ideas of "nature" particular groups of people for par ward, often at the expense of local itself, and that of "natural conserva ticular purposes. No concepts of na land claims. Whole villages might tion/' "parks" and "protected areas." ture are ever innocent or "unbiased." be uprooted in order to create pleas Like everything else, these concepts It's surprising, for example, the ex ing prospects with manicured have histories, and the more one tent to which the history of the idea lawns and aesthetically grouped trees. Page 28 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Conservationists often unwittingly for white national identity. As Jane were something defended only by insist on certain human/nature bound Caruthers notes, the park was "part of people interested in parks, green trees aries-and they disrespect construc the process of the struggle between and furry animals. But this boundary tions of "the environment" which are black and white over la~d and labor." cuts a good deal deeper into every different from their own. These bound The fact that the human/nature dis day European culture. Take the dis aries do a lot of the work of ethnic tinction used by some conservationists course on "overpopulation." On the discrimination and racism. One thing conceals a human/human distinction one side you have "population," on that a conservationist human/nature has always seemed pretty obvious to the other "carrying capacity." Just as boundary can be very good at is in those ethnic groups who find them "humans" are always threatening reinforcing or concealing ethnic dis selves oppressed for reasons of Nature. "nature," so "population" is always crimination in the allocation of land. using up "carrying capacity." These This has been the practical effect of Environmental juetice calle boundaries resemble each other so the preservationist human/nature di much that it's hardly any wonder chotomy since Bannock, Sheepeater, for the education of preeent that environmentalists themselves Shoshone and other Native American and future generatione. are always running them together. bands were kicked out of Yellowstone "If you took our planet and just put one emph~eizing eocial and to make it into what was called a human being on it," one of Britain's "pleasuring ground" for white visi environmental ieeuee. baeed best-known Green peace activists told a tors. It's what has often happened in on our experience and an television interviewer in 1997, "that protected areas ever since Miwok war human being would be consuming re riors were cleared out of the Yosemite appreciation of our diveree sources which otherwise would be avail Valley to make it into a tourist attrac cultural perepectivee. able for nature-for wildlife, for wild tion-the same Yosemite whose pleas animals, plants, w~atever . Two hu antly wooded scenes, so attractive to man beings consume twice as much, the white painters of the day, were in Just as nations help create spatially and a million consume a million times fact the direct result of thousands of bounded, mutually-exclusive ethnic as much... Everything we do impacts years of indigenous fire management, groups with their maps and censuses, so nature and to my mind what we need to planting and husbandry. Suppos national parks and protected areas are concentrate on is limiting that impact." edly human-free wilderness has long used to assimilate peoples the state re The ways in which such views in been a useful symbol for nationalis gards as wayward into citizenshipand tersect with ethnic discrimination tic elites. In South Africa, for in cultural conformity. are extraordinarily complex, but stance, Kruger National Park was es So far I've been describing a West let me make two quick points here. tablished in 1926 as unifying symbol ern human/nature boundary as if it continued on page SO November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 29 THE WAR OF BY }ENNIFER CHESWORTH September 11 marked the beginning of what Presi dent Bush has called the "War of the 21st Century." Its front ranks are comprised of on one side the champions of justice and defenders of the innocent, and on the other, the brainwashed and fanatical psycho-killers. It is easy to choose sides in this war in which good and evil are so forcefully defined; you are either for us or against us. Behind this new black-and-white war is a much older conflict that is not so clearly defined. Its roots reach deep into the history of conquest and colonialism; its victims are on every continent; its path of destruction is broad and meandering. This is the consumer war, waged between rich and poor, between the "First" and "Third" Worlds, between Walmart and the local general store. This is the war that Bush himself allude to when he said that the goal of terrorism is to keep Americans from "shopping" in his address to the nation on October 11. In every form of media today-television, newspa pers, Internet, radio-we Americans are hearing the call to fulfill our patriotic duty to shop. Although our wars in the past have demanded that we tighten our belts, that some measure of national sacrifice and fru gality are necessary, this time the war is quite different. Multinational corporations are presently all too ca pable of churning out the tools of war, but not without a continuing and escalating injection of "consumer Page 30 Earth First! Samhain 2001 THE 21ST CENTURY confidence." The ideology of perpetual growth and How can you choose sides when both use violence to progress has boiled over, requiring a bigger cauldron achieve their goals? each time we turn up the heat. Only now, there seems . The victims of the consumer war are uncountable to be a hole in our cauldron, as the invisible hand and do not resid!= in twin towers. They are the poor shrinks away from the scalding mess that is spilling out and disenfranchised, forest-dwellers and indigenous and threatening to quell our economic fire. cultures brutally pushed aside in the name of We have to remember in the midst of expansion and growth. Big business does our new preoccupation with terrorism not drop missiles from airplanes or use the and war that the call to revive consumer airplanes themselves as missiles. It uses confidence, to correct our economic us-our consumer confidence-to eat "downturn," was already becoming clear. away the very foundation upon which Our consumer war was already in full all life must stand. swing. In this new twist to the same old Our war on terrorism, vague as it is, war, the "defenders of justice" from the can at least produce the names and richest nation in the world are fighting faces of the 22 "most wanted" and tar against some of the richest men in the get their training camps where we know world. We have seen in clear terms them to exist. In contrast, the voice of that the terrorists we are now hunting dissent can only turn against itself; it is created their own wealth by playing neither for nor against the American the stock market and running their way. It is the American way. Let us not own multinational corporate empires. forget that the virtue of this great na The invisible hand has been feeding tion rests in allowing dissent and free- both the beast and its hunter. dom of thought to thrive. Let us not Expressing disSent in. this patriotic continue walking blindly down the climate over a war between good and shopping aisle as though love of the evil is a dangerous prospect: to criticize country can be purchased at Walmart. the hunter infers sympathy for the beast. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 31 refusal was prompted by the prince's suggestion that US policy in the Middle East was partly to blame for the Wolves and Poodles September 11 attacks. In the letter, McKinney said she regretted that Giuliani A power-of-the-people wolf to a coalition of rural had turned down the donation. "Whether he agreed with Nevadans, the Center for Biological Diversity, West you or not," McKinney wrote. "I think he should have ern Land Exchange Project and other environmental recognized your right to speak and make observations organizations for driving away potential buyers at a about a part of the world which you know so well." Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land auction in Lincoln County, Nevada. The October 12 auction, which An unabashed, enthusiastic, Woody-Guthrie-would officials had expected to generate at least three-and-a be-proud wolf to all activists not afraid to be attacked as half million dollars was a miserable failure because the "terrorists" or be labeled un-American for opposing the coalition scared potential bidders away by filing appeals war-mania sweeping the US. As the multitudes of sheep on the BLM's inadequate pre-sale environmental review. bleat and wave their flags, a courageous minority have Of the 6,500 acres up for sale, only 112 acres were sold. managed to keep their wits about them and stand up to The filing of the appeal caused BLM officials to require the madness. that bidders sign an agreement that any land sold would return to public hands in the event of the appeal's success. A timber-industry-greenwashed poodle to the American Forest and Paper A lone-dissenter wolf to Representative Barbara Lee of Association's Sustainable For California for acting on her principals and casting the only estry Initiative (SFI) Pro vote opposing President Bush's war resolution on Septem gram for certifying Pacific ber 15. The resolution authorized the president to use "all Lumber Company's (PL) necessary and appropriate force" against anyone associ wood products as pro ated with the September 11 terrorist attacks. duced from "sustainably Lee's prepared statement to Congress acknowledged managed forests." the pain and moral outrage of the attacks, while urging "Our pursuit and restraint and stating that military action will not pre successful comple- f /:. vent further acts of terrorism, will kill non-combatants tion of the SFI Pro- ( l f and cause the situation to spiral out of control. Her vote gram certification prompted death threats and hate mail and gave others process assures the courage to speak out. our customers and neighbors A not-afraid-to-be-called-a-heretic wolf to Wiscon that we are com sin Senator Russ Feingold for being the one voice in the mitted to meeting the needs of soci Senate to oppose the new draconian "USA Act of ety and protecting the environment," 2001" (S. 1510). Also said PL Chairman John Campbell. known as the Anti-Terror An oxymoronic, Orwellian-doublespeak poodle to ism Bill, the researchers for working on what they call" green bombs" legislation filled with "environmentally friendly" explosives. passed the Sen The aim of the research is to replace potentially toxic ate on October metals and chlorine-based chemicals with materials like 11 with a 96 to nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. The new bombs one vote and very will be just as effective at killing the enemy but will not risk little debate. the health of the soldiers using them. Researchers working for the German Army have pat A not-afraid-to ented at least two new "environmentally friendly" explo swim-upstream sives, which so far have not been used in the field. wolf to Georgia Representa A we-can't-leave-a-single-speck-of-the-planet-wild tive Cynthia poodle to the US Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth McKinney for . ·for preparing a plan to log 37 million board feet of sending an apol- · timber from a 64,000-acre, unspoiled island in Alaska's ogy letter to Saudi Tongass National Forest. To promote jobs to bolster Prince Alwaleed bin the state's ailing timber industry, the plan would allow Talal after the prince's the construction of up to 22 miles of roads on Gravina $10 million donation was re~ Island, a completely wild stretch of temperate rainforest jected by New York Mayor near Ketchikan, Alaska-an area previously protected Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani's under President Clinton's Roadless Initiative. Page 32 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Blast Frotn the Past EARTH FIRST! WAKE UP! NEWSLETTER November 1 Samhain Edition 1991 Vol XII, No. I species will become extinct in the next we demand from our industry. De BY MARC DAVIS few decades. The battle over environ nial seldom solves anything, but it A few days ago, I stood in front of a mental issues is not about logging jobs does allow an extended period of federal judge as he sentenced me to six versus hiking . trails. It is about the pretend· well-being and good feel years in prison on monkeywrenching continued existence of lifeforms ings. Our cultural denial is reinforced charges; I had destroyed machinery higher than the cockroach on this by an economy that is structured in with the intention of slightly slow planet. We are losing. such a way that survival can only be ing the accelerating destruction of We are gobbling the seed stock of life assured by growth. our planet. and pretending that the free lunch can Growth by its very nature means an A few days from now, I will begin to go on forever. The biosphere in which increase in the speed efficiency of serve my term. I am in terrible pain at our species evolved has served to sus environmental destruction. All of our the thought of separation from my tain us quite well for millennia. Yet political and corporate leaders owe two little daughters. I am a severe those who seek to stop the brutal their wealth and their power to claustrophobe and lost 40 pounds in assault on our shared home are con growth. Anyone who says that infi the two months of incarceration that demned as radicals by men whose nite growth on a finite planet is followed my arrest. Prison will be more self-proclaimed conservatism is really impossible is ridiculed. Denial has than usually difficult for me. But none nothing more than a demand to be al become official policy. of it matters much in the context of lowed to enrich themselves at any cost. There are two forms of biological the crisis in which we find ourselves. An intelligent conservative knows growth. A healthy organism is born, We humans are collectively killing some deep truths, including the illu grows to its genetically programmed this planet and dooming our own chil sory nature of free lunches and the size, reproduces and dies. Cancer is dren by indulging in an orgy of con inadvisability of taking irreversible also growth, a wild replication of sumption and denial. The killing is actions without understanding the one form of a cell at the expense of quite legal: Whatever fragile legisla consequences. Our behavior is neither all others in an organism. Un tive protections are enacted to slow it intelligent nor conservative. checked, cancer kills its host and are abandoned when it becomes eco I have learned through working itself. Industrial civilization is a can nomically inconvenient to retain with the dying and the addicted about cer on the body of the Earth. We them. We yearly release millions of the incredible power of denial in the must change course if we wish our tons of chemical and radioactive poi human psyche. Denial is what allows children to survive. sons into our food, air and water the addict to consume more poison, If what my three colleagues and I did poisons that in some cases carry the allows the smoker to assign that pain has no effect other than to further dam threat of harm for 100 times longer in his lungs to a tem age an already tattered social contract, than humans have had written ~- porary cold. The dy- then I apologize for my part in it. That records. The Smithsonian In ' ing progress through was not the point. I acknowledge the stitute recently informed us certain easily recog necessity of courts and laws, and I ac that one-third to one nizable stages on their cept my prison term. But I am not sorry. half of all existing ~~~l journey. Denialis first, We are in desperate trouble on this followed by bargain Earth, and unless the thick veil of ing, anger and finally, denial is torn, we will march ourselves for those fortunate and the beings with which we share enough to reach it, this planet into possible extinction. peace and acceptance. Our actions were an attempt, ill con We are as a culture and ceived or not, to wake our dreaming species mostly in the society. The effort was made not for denial stage, with a ten personal gain but on behalf of all be tative reach into bar ings and their unborn offspring. I hope gaining as we accept the someone is listening. need to recycle a few of Back issues of the EF!] are available for the most convenient items $5 each or $500 for our 21 -year set. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 33 DeAr SFB: Letters to the Etlitors continued from page 3 to prevent personal growth. Dear EF! together and fight the Olym Dear SFB, While yelling at a protest is a Has EF! 's nonviolent phi pics-not solely for being I would like to make it clear good and healthy thing, yell losophy taken aU-turn with sponsored by corporations or that in Free's statement in ing at your fellow'organizers the move to Tucson? Your for causing environmental court he stated his opinion is a weapon of privilege. header above the list of pris damage, but also for the ide which in some ways repre Raising your voice puts you oners is really offensive, espe ology created and the nation sent mine, but in other ways in a battle for dominance. I cially in light of the Sept. 11 alist world of global capital I disagree with him. I would like to encourage ev tragedy. Ted Kaczynski is "in they inspire." Jeff and his reads this to con there for us"?! Ted Kaczynski Anyway, I am the web mas much, but in matter of is a murderer who knowingly ter for www.burntheolymp he said he and willingly maimed and ics.org. We have been consis killed human beings. He is no tently trashed in the media different from the Sept. 11 by of CANOE. Un terrorists whose warped like minds were somehow able to justify blowing up people. Youprovideanexcellentser vice. No otl1erpubli1~at:ion media and I was wondering if we could also get some space in the Jour nal for an analysis of what the September 11 actions will mean for protesters to the Olympics. It's fucking nuts what people will be going up against. -SABRINA issues of yelling in our move continue blockading the the liberal group's website, Editors' Note: The best way ment. Too often, people who project until such time. Many www.anti2002.org/. This to get over your disappointment call themselves anarchists will of the participants in the ac group is not even willing to is to submit articles yourself use the weapons of patriarchy tion are anarchists, and yet say publicly that they are Tell us what we can do to bum at their disposal. People raise none of them had any say in against the Olympics because the Olympics. their voices, and when doing the media message. One per they think that's too radical. this, they use this abusive be son was the media spokes The most in-your-face they Dear Shit-fur Brainy Editors, havior to achieve a position woman, and her reformist have gotten is the domain Your distinguished rag-mag of dominance. Most of us can politics defined the thrust of mime. The banner on the will probably shy away from remember being abused by the entire action. I would like website clearly says, "Ques direct analysis of the ramifica our parents. We've decided to urge folks to take part in tion the Olympics, challenge tions of the September 11 "At that physical violence is so media work and hold those the five-ring circus." Is it re tack on America" ... So, I'll just cially unacceptable, but ver who rush to the spotlight ac ally that radical to say that try and say this: If Radicals bal violence is a norm in our countable to the rest of the one is against something? don't seize this moment's society. But when has yelling group. There is no reason why CANOE (Citizen Activist Net opening to crusade "Their at a friend or fellow organizer an Earth First! action should work Olympic Education) Truths" then the victims of the ever resolved a conflict? Many demand the compliance of a · thinks so. They will only say World Trade Center spectacle people will justify this by say genocidal, colonial govern- ' that they are against poverty, will have truly died in vain. ing that "Yelling relieves ten ment who only seeks to co environmental destruction, For years every "l e a r ~r· " I sion, and prevents physical opt all dissent. etc. In the article in the Jour have argued with could <' · violence." I think that this is a No Compromise! nal, it was written that, "Per defend the twisted lies that cop-out, and a rationalization -THE FRENCH BROAD haps the activists can come most environmental groups Page 34 Earth First! Samhain 2001 expose by pleading" ... Butthe The hopelessly, over-edu make love, make art, enjoy Dear SFB, people aren't ready for the cated author claims that "the life, go for hikes in the wilder I didn't believe it when truth!" But, "There is no col worldview of activism is domi ness, spend a day (or a week) read in your June/July issue lapse of industrialism and no nated by guilt and duty". exploring beaches or forests that some ELFer had burned permanent end to US cultural Though this may be true for or deserts or doing nothing SUVs at a car dealership and and economic domination some, it is outrageous to think political whatsoever. If you some others had burned down without massive suffering and that this is true for all. Wake don't, you'll burn out and some random condo. This is a many deaths. We are already up! The author ought to try grow cynical and morose and waste of good incendiary de engaged in an eco-social war asking some real-life activists old and intellectual and lame, vices and people's time and and if we don't direct its what "dominates their like the author of "Give up effort and makes the rest of the course the "ends will crucify worldview" and they will Activism" and you'll start us movement look bad. Car deal our passivity." probably get a multitude of ing stuffy words like ;, milieu", ers and condo owners are not Death, sacrifice and chaos answers, like, "go tuck off you and "untactical". the enemy! (The car dealer said deserve direct responses. The sorry-ass, academically-re The author also falsely it himself. "I am not General moral of Sept. 11 is that people tarded, loser", or more polite claims that" As an activist you Motors!"). The causes of global who work for corporations and true to the point answers have to deny your own de warming and urban sprawl are and the political elite who are such as: moral outrage, frus sires because your political the car manufacturers in De killing this planet are all le tration, compassion, anger, activity is defined such that troit and the oil companies. gitimate targets to many sadness and love, just to name these things do not count as It is just plain stupid (and people, groups and na damned dangerous to the tions. Or do you think that movement) to target lower Iran or Colombian chil level functionaries and un dren are better targets? The suspectingvictimsofthesys USA better do more than tern. Instead, pay attention "wake-up." Negotiate a sur to one of the EF! mottoes: render of wealth, power Strike at the roots. Find a and plunder or spiral into way to shut down the head the darkest days of quarters, factories, research humanity's failed experi labs, refineries, officers and ment of "Civilization." distribution centers of the -MARK MY WORDS multinationals. If you can't use incendiaries because of Dear Shit for Brains, possible harm to people or The lamest thing I've animals, take out their elec ever read in the Journal tricity, water, sewage, tele was the so called" critique" phone and cable lines and entitled "Give up Activ make it difficult or impos ism" (Geronimo issue), sible to reconnect. which the editors claim There are hundreds of "applies equally well" to targets. Do some research N. America and Britain. I dis a few. Hey author, why don't 'politics"'. Which is probably to find out where they are but agree. It applies to neither, you give up your self-loath true for the author arid ex don't use your home com because it is a huge pile of ing, anti-activist attitude and plains a lot why he/she is so puter-theytrack your access! bullshit wrapped up in over go outside in the rain and tucked up in the head~ Here Use public access Internet or intellectualized, pretentious dance, scream and sing silly are some quotes from famous an industrial directory or na jargon. The very first line of songs until you feel better. activists that might help. "If tional 800 directory in a li this essay is an example of the Your whole essay is a morbid, sex hurts, you're not doing it brary (don't ask the librarian, reasoning that follows. "The untrue, thumb-up-your-ass, right"-anonymous (substi just look for it. Remember activist is a specialist or an winge (whine) because you tute sex for activism and you'll security culture!). Here are a expert in social change". This haven't had enough fun lately. have the same problem) "If I few examples: absolutist statement is used You claim that the "activity of can't dance, I don't want any Oil companies: refineries, as a basis for the faulty rea an activist is a dull and sterile part of your revolution." headquarters, distribution de soning that follows. Fortu routine". Well speak for your Emma Goldman, "Let your pots. Chemical companies: nately it is absurd. Very few self. Obviously your activism actions define the ~ner points Dow, Monsanto, Solution, activists are experts. Most are · is, and herein lies your prob of your philosophy."_:_ Ed Ortho, Bayer, etc.-factories, genuine amateurs who feel lem. Activism isn't always fun, Abbey. Will I give up activ sales offices. Crop genetic compelled to take action of but it's up to all of us to make ism? Never. Will I modify it engineering: Monsanto, some sort, for the sake of a it fun, as much as possible, as when needed, and take breaks Syngenta (Novartis), Aventis, cause based on a variety of often as we can. And it's up to from it? Absolutely!! Delta & Pine Land-headquar- motivations and reasons. us to take time off and party, -JoE MAMA continued on next page Less thAo ;oo orfls/ pleAse November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 35 DeAr ~FB: Letters to the E~itors continued from previous page I am learning a great deal tion Front (ELF) action in And consequently, from the ters, seed factories, labs; seed from the Earth First! Journals. northern Wisconsin. Meyers disenchanted masses ELF will distributors. Paper and wood Continue your excellent work. responded to a letter to EF! gain, not sympathy really, but companies: Weyerhauser, I appreciate the Journal. criticizing ELF for destroy genuine respect and a cautious Georgia-Pacific, james River, Relentlessly, ing 500 trees in a federal willingness to allow ELF to etc.-headquarters, pulp and -MAFUNDI forestry laboratory near pass freely among them. paper plants, wood mills, dis p.s. Why not cover some of Rhinelander. The trees were Second the admission of tribution warehouses. Drug the environmental issues par ostensibly products of selec mistakes puts a burden on companies: Pfizer, Schering, ticular to the Afrikan com tive breeding rather than those involved in activities Pharmacia (Upjohn), etc. munity and other people of genetic modification (see not threatening to the envi headquarters, warehouses. color communities-other EF!J, August-Sept. 2001). ronment to clearly distin Tobacco companies: Phillip than the Native Americans/ However I believe ELF guish themselves from those Morris, Lorrilard, Reynolds, Indigenous. people. Broaden misses a great opportunity who are. Global consequences etc.-Headquarters, facto your coverage and broaden by not generously admitting should be very much at the ries. Human and animal your base. that the action could have fore of our consciousness for There .is big environmen been a mistake, the target all our endeavors. ELF actions . genetic engineering a tal struggle going on in San not well selected. Poorly cho and the potential for ELF ac (deadly "genetherapy", FranCisco ·in regards to the sen targets have been com tions can foster such a con xenotransplantation, and Naval Yard there and an at- . mon, too common really, sciousness, but only if such a cloning): just refer to Mass tempt 'to ·build more hazard throughout history. The mili distinction is integral to ELF achusetts, Washington DC or ous waste sites in the Afrikan tary examples are most egre philosophy. There must be Raleigh, NC phone books! communities plus other envi gious of course, but such some clear set of guidelines Please be careful. They will ronmental issues: They could screw-ups are not limited to for avoiding ELF retaliation. send agents to try to find you. certainly need some support. armed conflict. ELF and related move Don't leave trails and don't By admitting mistakes ELF ments are in position to carry hurt people or animals. · Be Dear SFB, will gain two things. First the on a great tradition as old as creative, but discreet. William P. Meyers' defen movement demonstrates a hu history, of spontaneous di Sincerely sive approach was one way mility and graciousness that rect action. Honor that tra -MORPHEUS to respond to the criticism sets it apart from the agents of dition by acknowledging p.s. Cellphone towers are leveled against Earth Libera- environmental destruction. humble origins and human also easy: just cut the round (coax) lines; if you can get access to the radio shack, take out the amps, transmitters, and receivers. But don't cut the power to the tower lights, or planes will crash into the towers and people will get killed. (If you make a mistake and take out the lights, call someone to fix it fast!) Greetings in Solidarity! I have been greatly enjoying the Earth First! Journals. They have been very interesting and very informative. AsanAfrikan political activist/organizer/ revolutionary I had considered the environmental movement to be a white movement and a white issue. I have been con cerned about "environmental racism". The dumps/hazardous waste, chemical plartts, airports, train tracks and major pollut ers are relegated to the poor communities and primarily to communities of people of color. Page 36 Earth First! Samhain 2001 fallibility. Our hearts are Before I begin as a Federal Never give up hope big Wayne Co. How did those with you. government prisoner I sadly brother can and must be stood folks do that? I imagine oth -THE ANCIENT MARINER cannot afford the cost of your up to. Certain brothers and ers would like· to learn from "great" publication, so I am sisters know our past nuclear these folks. And, what to do Dear SFB, in hopes that not only will protest. Even as one person we as projects to replace such Many thank for the May you grant me a free subscrip can and will bring about prison building. June issue of the EF!J. It has tion but that when you hope change. We must stop the de Secondly, in re: "Not Fight been very encouraging, and fully print what I have to say struction. Changing the desert ing for the Holy Land: To Be has helped to lift my spirits you will include my address? to city's like Vegas, destroying Radical Environmentalists in past the concrete, steel and cause I really support men mountain tops for coal, which Israel." I found it mind-bog razor wire, by which I am tally threw letters. same coal pollutes. Daily in gling that there was no ac surrounded. Incarceration I know my hand writing your local paper you can read knowledgmentofthefactthat can, and often does, destroy and spelling and other english some sort of destruction of our the area is a settler-area, land many good people unfortu grammar is poor, but print mother earth. seized from the Palestinian nate enough to get caught up me as I spell as I wish others Soon I shall be free to take people! How does one be a in this capitalist, greedy "In to know "me." my stand I hope all my radical environmentalist in a justice system." Did readers I want to thank brother and sisters will stand situation of historical conflict So to all of my brothers you for making a stand. As I with me. For now your letters over guardianship of the and sisters who are tangled rotin the United up in this farce of correc States Peniten tional centers "keep your tiaryplacedhere chin up and don't let them by my own gov grind you down!" ernment. I listen Down with the prison cor to so many in poration of America! Up with mates cry about the people! how bad our I would also like to reply to government is, I the letter from Ramona in the ask them before SFB columns. Since I have no your crime the access to a computer or email government (oh damn). I will just have to charged you hope you read this. Kudos for with what did your strength, persistence and you do to fight courage in the fight with your the govern school! It is very encouraging ment? That's to see that you did not give the end of the up even when the chips were subject. stacked against you. Keep up But great folks the good work. have stood up ls this flOUr Aos"'er? If you, or any other family and I for one am members, would like to write proud. Much of my past stand and support would put that land? While it is of course I will write back. in my part of my war on gov smile where one seldom right on to support preserva Peace, love and autonomy, ernment, logging, Giant Cor seems to be. tion of the land and animals, -TRACY "TuRKEY" BooTH porations I can not speak on as -ROBERT GRANT how about preservation of the ICC G-202-A our government calls it a crime. #09545-055 people who lived there? What POB 70010 Yet I was there at Seabrook USP LEWISBURG about "confronting oppres BOISE, lD 83707 nuclear plant at the 19 79 pro POB 1000 sion" there? test. A few months before LEWISBURG, PA 17837 For liberation and justice, Greetings People: Three Mile Island I was there -MARILYN BucK I write you from the con then it went wrong. I've stood Dear Shit for Brains, #004482-285 fines of one of the US of A's up to stop the killing of whales, I recently received and read 5701 8TH ST CAMP PARKS B human warehouse's com seals, tree's, even our back your August 2001 issue. I en DUBLIN, CA 94568 monlycalled "the United States · yards. How many of you had joyed reading it. I find you Penitentiary." Hopefully you woods where you grew up now active. I have several com will publish what I have to say · to only see Giant malls ..It is at ments on 2 of your articles. In if not then I'll assume "free the destruction of mother na the first, "Lockdown Society," speech" is only for those you ture that the rich get richer. I I thought it was a good ar grant it to? But in all ·truth I figure the .tree that once was ticle. However, I was left want believe you will consider what our tree house is where the ing to know more about the I have to say just as important. bathroom is in a mall. forging of the coalition in November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 37 the towers fell in flames the End of Summer in the Spirit Bear Rainforest There is a silly zen koan which the ancient canopy whispered water to wake the in the forest makes any sound ~rnm~oonns below the I emailed Mom for the answer, as t-nlln't&l<·"'· moss. To: Mother Earth ~~. hysteria, and pestilence broke out From: Me It Autumn in the Wild Rockies The heat and great fires finally withered, and dying leaves If the world's what we just hear and see, -whimpered softly Then it seems that it really could be: nonetheless. When a tree hits the ground And no human's around All is silence. Please comment. Love, Me. And when the truth about us is blatantly made manifest -for ALL to see To: You It will be Winter on Black Mesa From: Mother Earth The sun will still trick the grass and the sheep and the -coyotes into 'Tis sad you still need to discover short-lived but brilliant blue delusions. All life is your sister and brother. So when trees start to fall, So if we end up killing ourselves They all hear. Most of all: I'm always nearby. LovJ!, Your Mother There will be Spring for somebody else With a vibrant south wind and shifting splashes of waxing -Uncle Ramon The nickname of a -sunlight they still retired life insurance salesman call Home. named Robert Amon-Ramon, get it?-US Prosecuting Attorneys insist There is Hope but not for us on calling it an "alias. ") Gaia evolves ...... May we at -The RECOLLECTIONS Walking down a dusty road, The sky is baby blue, Cotton candy floating by; Up high, a hawk is too. · The sun ·is warm, the breeze is slight; So the brcmches slowly sway, · And the smell ofpine comes drifting by; From the woods across the way. I cross the field ofwildflowers; And head down to the stream, Do you really wonder why I choose THIS place to dream? -Terry Krieger Page 38 Earth First! Samhain 2001 PAWNEE BUTTES Dusty bones in moonlight, buttes above prairie juniper under sky Over cattle guards, through gates and cow p'ies, out of the doors we live within and under fhe open sky, I seek a place for sleep. · Where is wolf? Buffalo? Bear?-Old man in his furs Wild tenants who lack proper currency, They all took off, a beat up old ex-Hogfarm Rainbow People school bus full of the wild, driven by wine-swilling pissed-pants coyote, bound for some god knows-where town in Mexico. Wind in the juniper voice of the land Listen! It says I am the song of the prairie death chant of Old Ones voice of seasons, moons, storms SALMON FILETS grand web you've forgotten: Passing the meat counter in love you kill, eat, die, are eaten. At the back of Jewell saw Chicken plucked from barnyard rivalries, Long, red salmon filets steer, never to know heifer, but the rancher's For sale. -castrating knife. Whose are they? Wild cries as you stalk aisles Only the day before supermarket hunters about nine grizzlies Peas, potatoes, carrots torn death in British Columbia. to maK.e new f!esh and vm'le-- •nttAr.c•tt into a village where salmon run no more. presidents and postal wt:lrK,ers fishing televangelists and teachers. -P.11'\J,.n, the bears, wasting the natives, But the chain is circle strong, proud grizzly, delight of fungus, molds, we mulch our way to ere..l:JlC Under juniper I dreamn· 'le"'iftJ~I-~\ .. fe~d .the poor in the ghetto~ of a new America where two-legged, four-legged, S.larN'a1110n is long and cold and cruel winged and swimming bears are beaten all find voice fishing industry America Masters the iniquity of unrepentant torture seamless As it pillages deeper · wild her great prairies unfenced . Into a world so recently blinding with life. Where graSSeS heave through nnli!PJ'I'IPJ'I weave the bones of long where bison thunder and the wolfs howl in our blood. Send poems to: Warrior Poets Society -Micliae{91.aams POB 14501 Berkeley, CA 94712-5501 November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 39 Page 40 Earth First! Samhain 2001 riding my own magic carpet into the media spotlight of the BY PRINCE BIN THERE AND BLINKED escalating anti-globalization protests. My well-planned Dear Luminousities, Wimyn, Wanks and Gents, welcome to swoop to fame was more like a silent fart when you're the Salon, trying to impress some drunk buddies with a loud quacker. Despite the Fifth Amendment, I want to say that I'm not the "That stank, Hank." bin Laden of Turtle Island. Mad jealousy maybe. Is it a guy I'm pissed. His timing is better than mine-and way thang or the I'm-the-coolest-revolutionary-around trip that grander. By November, I was supposed to be hanging 300- gets my goat stinking? Nah, its guilt. Ifl had just studied more, feet up in a treesit platform between two skyscrapers. Me, an prayed once, fought my way to fame and status or stayed up instant media celebrity dishing out "the radical gospel" in that damn Luna tree with Butterfly-! could have really cell phones, live web streaming. Fat chance. been somebody well-known, like the "Sultan of Ecotopia." Mr. "trained-by-the-CIA" bin Laden scooped my action I'm not usually the jealous type, or I don't get the chance. and trumped my whole project by changing the \;VOrld and Girlfriends don't leave me for another guy or girl, they just get stealing the stage that defines radicalism and resistance. seriously sensitized to mybroken-record-Jihad-political-economy I was sure that the ELF would take the microphone away rap. Almost famous for boasts of no personal from the timid babblers of US em-moderation-or ego, my jealousy must stem from "move maybe even me, ol' bin There and Blinked. ment ego"-a longing for glory. My backup plan was a campaign to chal lenge sprawl development in the Southwest Personal Jealousy of Osama via lawsuits over water. Julia Butterfly bin Laden? made a date to plan a fundraising event. If I had an ego, I'd be jealous. For I trimmed my hair and even brushed one, he is inches taller. He's been my teeth, all set to rendezvous in able to travel more than I have; Sedona, Arizona on September 14. though he hasn't ever seen a red Yep, bin Laden took out two towers wood tree or the grandeur of a Grand and Julia canceled. Canyon tourist invasion. His father left him more money than mine did, Maybe This is Personal but mine still talks at least. Another year and my writings Bin Laden has enough brothers and would have been hot! "bin" and I sisters to form one hell of an affinity have written a lot on international group-practically his own basecamp! affairs and th~ philosophy of Evil (The 17th son of 24, with 28 sisters). (US, of course, and actually quite Three wives and 15 children-I'm not \'fllftk identical arguments). His picture and jealous of that. t -shirts are hawked around the world. Maybe it's his dark eyes, snazzy beard, His words are famously infamous. I that gaunt hollowness? can't even put my name to my writ It couldn't be love, faith or power. Could it? ing, or I'd be pigeon-holed, stereotyped and lose my only bit of "Mystery-Charisma"-anonymity. The Jealousy of Accomplishment Bin Laden drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan and may There have been other bombings in the US: The Unabomber soon drive the infidels (us) out of Arabia or the whole Middle attacks on government and computer executives; the Weather East. I couldn't even get Maxxam out of Humboldt County, Underground bombings of the NYC police station Oune California. His holy sites are still intact; mine (low elevation 1970), Long Island courthouse in Queens in solidarity with wilderness) have all been butchered for Japanese chopsticks. prison riots in NYC (October 1970), the US capital to protest He's got thousands of martyrs, dozens of heroes the invasion of Laos (March 1971), the Pentagon following (Mohammed,FaisaliAbdel-Aziz,Arafat).I'vegotmyrainbow the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of North Vietnamese friend David Chain and who else? Patty Hearst? ports (May 1972); the US Capital by Puerto Rican Independistas; I smash TVs to show how pure I am. His Taliban friends the New World Liberation Front powerline bombings (1974- banned TV completely and hung them from trees in Kabul. 79). The biggest "leftist" bombing other than "Madison" was We both like deserts, mountains, trekking and that rush of when three of the Weather Underground blew themselves up being on-the-run. I sing hard about dancing on the ruins. in Greenwich Village, New York, 1970. Ruins follow his wake. He's real. I'm just dreaming delusions. None of these had glamor. Bin Laden is not sad. For sure he's not jealous. He is None possessed the fateful timing of September 11. riding an unstoppable current of history. Our impotence Bin Laden caught this summer's wave of anti-American and fragility are laughable. The West no longer has an sentiment. I thought I was hot on a similar trajectory, ounce of bravery left to it. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 41 alii( Bombs ?)'law Y.iu 011e'l ea.li~o'l'JtiA. A 500-foot, In this traditional homeland of the Salinan tribe, Native red and white Americans and environmental activists oppose such a bull' s-eye will massive assault against the cultural and natural wonders be painted on of the area. The target is in the heart of the Salinan Army property homeland, with 300 certified archaeological sites, graves near California's and village remnants. Santa Lucia Moun The Navy "told us how accurate they are," said Gregg tains if the US De Castro, chairman of the Salinan Tribal Council. "They partment of the Navy can't guarantee it. We know they can't. It only takes one has its way. The Navy plans [bomb] to land in the exact wrong place ... The arch is to use the target-the Doolittle Training Target Area unique. Once it's gone, it's gone. There's no repairing it." near the edge of Big Sur to teach jet fighter pilots how to Fort Hunter Liggett is made up of 165,000 acres of oak drop bombs. savanna near the Ventana Wilderness. It is a relatively Using planes capable of supersonic speeds, flying an pristine coastal mountain valley, which supports the only estimated 3,000 sorties a year, the Navy would drop wild woodland plant and animal habitat of any size in 36,000 practice bombs in a place best known for its silence. coastal California. More than 55 percent of all of California's A naval officer described the ex~rcise as "kindergarten native plants are here, and the area has recently seen a rise training" for fighter pilots at Fort Hunter Liggett. Cur in the number of tule elk, condors and bald eagles that call rently, the fort serves as a training ground for Army it home. Fort Hunter Liggett has been preserved for the last reserves and National Guard. 60 years largely because the Army kept people out and the Navy officials have defended the bombing plan as key to land intact. national security, adding that the flights will never reach Protesters, including Representative Sam Farr, environ supersonic speeds, will not use live mentalists, scientists, hikers, Native Americans and resi bombs nor harm the area's flora and dents, are demanding that the Navy look atwhat is at stake. fauna. The Navy proposal suggests "It's the F-18 against the condors. The government has that the bombers will be too spent millions on both, and they shouldn't accu~atetp cause any harm. meet in the sky," Farr said. "Nobody but the Navy is for it." For more information on ongoing protests against the Navy's bombing plan, contact the Ventana Conservation and Land Trust at POB 488, Paso Robles, CA 93447; [email protected]; www.ventanatrust.org. This description of a run by two MiG jets is equivalent to, perhaps with a little Less throttle, that ofan F-18. Imagine this 36,000 times a year. "Three puffs of white smoke ap peared at the edge of the plain to our south, and another on a ridge beyond a cluster of houses on the outskirts of the village. Then, as we heard the sound of approaching jets, we understood ~ The heli copter had dropped smoke beacons for the pilots, whose aircraft flashed into the sky from nowhere, the engines so loud they shook the ground. The noise was their bellies like comets. They banked and swooped again, indescribable. I tried to photograph them as they attacked. · glinting, deadly, silver, in long, roaring dives out of the My fingers trembled at the controls of my camera as I tried ' west, pulled up suddenly in tandem, and then dived again, to follow their shapes, certain that the pilots had seen me.· beyond the village ... Then they were gone, and all that was Two MiG fighter-bombers screamed over us, dived, left was the ringing in our ears and two widening stains of swooped and leaped vertically upwards above the ridges, brown Earth against the sky hundreds of feet high." scattering clusters of magnesium flares th built-in safeguard our nation has against a military dictatorship, then O'Conner's quote is bad news, since it is the Supreme Court that decides what is" constitutional" and what is not. Becatise we cannot count on the Supreme Court to uphold even our most fundamental tutional rights, our energies direct action movement rected toward settin alarms despite thi:>J.i Monsanto-not by petitioning their tion of India's World Bank/IMF BY RoB Los R1cos government or voting, but by putting debts; farmland for agricultural India is a vast, varied nation with every bit of Monsanto's product to the families living in villages only-no dozens of ethnic and cultural popula torch. There are vast peasant and in corporate farms; human rights pro tions within its borders. Though densely digenous peoples' movements arising tection for women; Enron and populated, India remains a very agri across the nation in opposition to dam Monsanto out of India and boy cultural society, and thus the people building projects, mining operations, cotts of all multinational, corpo- there retain a strong sense of closeness rampant deforestation and multina rate products. · to the land they inhabit. Despite being tional corporate fishing. This is a truly revolutionary pro~ a modern, industrial nation-India has Starting November 18, a nation gram, and the people of India deserve more communication satellites in or wide campaign of "ongoing direct our support and solidarity. Let's pro bit than any other country and manu action against the ill effects of glo vide them with funds and target our factures more PCs and motion pictures. balization" is being planned by the homegrown domestic terrorists-US People in India have often been National Alliance of People's Move government, Monsanto, Union Car at the forefront of environmental ments (NAPM). While other coun bide, WTO and financial institutions struggles. The term "tree hugger," for tries and societies are disintegrating who are threatening these people and instance, originated there when into warring ethnic, nationalistic their homelands. women forest defenders linked arms and cultural factions, the exploited For more information, contact around trees to prevent them from people of India are pulling together NAPM, c/o Haji Habib, Bldg. "A" being logged. Also, an alliance of small to fight against the New World Or Wing, 1 floor, Naigaon Cross Rd, farmers and peasants has succeeded in der. Here are some of their demands: Dadar (East) Mumbai, India 14; establishing a de facto banishment of that India quit the WTO; cancella- san [email protected]. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 43 I WHY THE FuTURE NEEDS Us · Nature & Technology-Ultimately there can be only one. hole-the place beyond a collapsed star's "event hori BY ]AMES BELL zon." Here one finds the astrophysicist's singularity "Singularity-A point at which the derivative of a a rift in the continuum where Einstein's rules no longer given function of a complex variable does not exist, but function. It is a place beyond human understanding. everyneighborhoodofwhichcontainspointsforwhich "What is it?," "when will it happen?" and "who is the derivative exists. A point at which space and time behind it?" are questions about the technological are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and singularity that technology corporations would rather which is held to be the final state of matter falling you not ask. The biotech industry would rather those a black hole."-Webster's Nineth Ullctza,na:rv questiot's get asked after genetically engineered foods · ,~ commonplace. If the public understood singularity it could cause panic .(;: arc>m;JI't:he ::~rt·pn fl:iil~ rpofnewtechnologies. Monsanto relations to avoid There is a consensus point in time wn,erJ!W5fl'e thrown out and new metaphors of the .world Beyond the singularity, point where no rate. and nature. plans to "Blue Gene," a If there exists no distinction ""r"'"''" perform one million-billion calcu nature then life as we know it has gone sec:onla--about one twentieth the power of Powerful people understand the implications uu.'""" brain. According to Moore's Law, a ?3 moment and are consciously and actively working to computer's hardware will surpass human brainpower bring it about. Minorities of scientists, also aware of the in the first decade of this century. Software that emu coming singularity, are doing everything they can to lates the human mind, "artificial intelligence," may stop it from happening. The gears of globalization, take a few more years to evolve. entities like the WTO and the World Bank, ensure that The exponential growth of technologic progress is as the singularity approaches the majority of the world felt in industries outside of the computer sciences as will have no say in how science and technology will well-for example, the mapping of the human ge affect them. · nome " ahead of schedule" and the increasing ability of 8 Some scientists have theorized that the purpose of astrophysicists to explore the farthest reaches of the life itself is to bring about the singularity. Some say that universe. Designer and inventor Stewart Brand, in his 6 the major changes will happen in a matter of hours, book The Clock ofthe Long Now, discusses another law much like what would happen in outer space if one Monsanto's Law. It states that the ability to identify and <·, could reach the dense anomaly at the center of a black use genetic information is doubling every 12 to 24 months. Page 44 Earth First! Samhain 2001 This exponential growth in biological knowledge is trans developments we only thought possible in "20,000 years" forming agriculture, nutrition and health care in the emerg will happen in this century. They point to exponential ing life sciences industry. Monsanto doesn't mention its work growth trends in science and industry quickly becoming near on human germline engineering-that is, designing disease infinite with each. subsequent yearly doubling. This means resistant, higher-yield people. By 1997, Monsanto Corpora that at some point only a few decades away or possibly tion claimed that a computer-accelerated "Monsanto's Law" sooner, the future becomes "future-incomprehensible." was operating at a similar pace to Moore's Law. Scientists are debating, not so much ifit will happen, but what discovery will soon set off the series of Earth-altering Self-Replicating Atomic-size Machines technologic advancements that will bring forth the singular Another cutting-edge field of research with an exponen ity. San Diego University Professor of Computer Science tial growth rate of knowledge is nanotechnology-the sci Vernor Vinge first alerted the scientific community to the ence of building "machines" out of atoms. A nanometer is singularity in 1993, "We are on the edge of change compa atomic in scale, a distance one-hundred-thousandth the rable to the rise of human life on Earth. Within 30 years, we width of human hair. The goal of this science is to change will have the technological means to create superhuman the atomic fabric of matter-to engineer "machine-like intelligente. Shortly after, the human era will end." atomic structures" that reproduce like living mat- ter. In this respect it is similar to biotechnology, Technologic Globalization at all Costs except that nanotechnology needs to literally Physicists, mathematicians and scientists like Vernor create something like the non-organic version of Vinge, and Ray Kurzweil have identified through their DNA to drive the building of its tiny machines. accelerated technological change theories the likely bound University ofTexas Professor Angela Belcher states, aries of the singularity and have predicted with confidence "We're working out the rules of biology in a realm the effects leading up to it over the next couple of decades. where nature hasn't had the opportunity The majority of people closest to these theories and to work." Belcher is combining geneti laws, the tech sector of the world, can hardly cally modified proteins with semi wait for the singularity to arrive. The true conductors in the hope of us- believers call themselves "extropians," ing proteins to do the "build "post-humans" and "trans-humanists" ing" of the non-living and are actively organizing not just to nanostructure. The tech bring the singularity about, but to nique is a hybrid of biotech counter what they call "techno-phobes" nology and nanotechnology. What would and "neo-luddit.es"-groups like Greenpeace, Earth take millions of years to evolve on its own First! and the Rainforest Action Network. "takes about three weeks on the bench The global neo-luddite movement was born on top," says Belcher. February 24, on New York City's Upper East Side. Machine progress is knocking down the The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) barriers between all the sciences. Chemists, held a Teach-In on Technology and Globalization at biologists, engineers and physicists are now Hunter College. The goal of the event, 1announced finding themselves collaborating on more IFG spokesperson jerry Mander, was to "bring experimental research. This collaboration together the protest movement born in Seattle is best illustrated by the opening of Cornell with the leading critics of technologies-luddites, University's Nanobiotechnological Center if you will." and other such facilities around the world. The Progress Action Coalition, AgBioworld, Bio These scientists predict a breakthrough around technology Progress, Foresight Institute, the Progress 2005 to 2015 which will open the way to Freedom Foundation and other industry groups who molecular-size computing-allowing exponen desire technologic progress at all costs acknowledge tial technologic progress to race toward infinity. that the greatestthreat to this progress comes not from environmental groups, but from a small faction of the scien Reaching Infinity tific community-where one voice stands out. Outside of industry and science, one of Earth's species is also experiencing tremendous exponential growth-the ris The Warning ing human population. Dan Eder, a scientist at the Boeing It is fair to say that a wrench has been thrown into the Artificial Intelligence Center, comments, "Human popula arrival of the singularity by an unlikely source-Sun tion growth in the past 10,000 years has been following a Microsystems Chief Scientist Bill]oy. This man ranks right up hyperbolic growth trend. Since about 1600 AD the trend has there with Bill Gates when it comes to influence in and out been steadily accelerating with the asymptote, or the point of of the computer world. joy helped give birth to Unix, co near infinite increase, located in the year 2035 AD." An founded Sun Microsystems and went on to develop the infinite number of humans is of course impossible, and many software systems java andjini. These systems helped give the scientists predict our numbers will hover around nine billion Internet "life. n at mid-century. Eder contends that if being human is defined In a now infamous April 2000 cover story in Wired maga as having "consciousness," then artificial life will be what zine, Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, joy warned of the makes up the number discrepancy. dangers posed by developments in genetics, nanotechnology Experts, like inventor Raymond Kurzweil, contend that continued on next page November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 45 continued from previous page Global Progress on the-Edge of Extinction and robotics. Joy both understood and believed the Earth Atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen won the Nobel Peace changing ramifications of the events leading up to the Prize for explaining the hole in the ozone layer. The hole singularity that Kurzweil and Vinge were prophesizing. The above Antarctica ·is caused by chlorofluorocarbons. Had world was warned-ground zero approached. chemists earlier in the last century decided to use bromine The article sparked a dialogue that has been joined by instead of chlorine to produce coolants-a mere quirk of business and technology leaders, members of Congress and chemistry-the ozone hole would have been far larger, oc presidents' inner circles. The Times ofLondon compared Joy's curred all year and severely affected life, he said. "Avoiding statement to Einstein's 1939 letter to President Roosevelt that was just luck," stated Crutzen. That no sdentist had which alerted him to the possibility ofa nuclear bomb. predicted the hole or its impact is a sobering thought for Joy's warning is the latest salvo in the debate sur anyone wishfully thinking of a corporate-controlled, utopian rounding the impacts of exponential technologic progress future before or after the singularity. "We missed something run amok. He gives credence to the reality of a corning very important. There may be more of these things around singularity while pointing out that things must change, the corner." or we will not navigate it-we could be the last genera It is very likely that scientists and global corporations tion of humans. will miss key developments (or actively avoid discussion of Central to the warning is the difference between the them) as they take place in our natural world. A whole technologies of the 20th century and generation of scientists has left the those of the 21st. The 20th century field for the biotech and nanotech gave rise to nuclear, biological and labs. Biologist Craig Holdredge, who chemical (NBC) technologies that, has followed biotech since it's begin while powerful, require vast access to nings in the 1970s, warns, "Biology is raw materials, technical information · losing its connection with nature." and large-scale industries. The 21st cen- ..· Maybe this, combined with the mo tury technologies of genetics, tives of a global capitalist economy, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR) partially explains why billions of dol however, will not require large facilities lars get invested into lab research that orrare raw materials. In fact,Joywrites, keeps Monsanto's Law, Moore's Law "knowledge alone will enable mass de and technologic progress accelerat struction"-what he calls KMD or ing towards the singularity. knowledge-enabled mass destruction. Cyberpunk author Williarh Gibson This power becomes further ampli has commented on humanity's pre fied by the fact that these new GNR dicament, "It is difficult for us to know technologies will be able to "replicate." ~ what we lose. We are constantly losing The old NBC technologies did not- · ~ things, and often, as we lose them, we nuclear bombs did not sprout more can't remember what they were. They bombs and toxic spills did not grow go, they really do; we lose them totally more spills. The new GNR technologies as we move forward in this increasingly though, can replicate beyond control. · mediated existence." Released into the environment, GNR Scientist Raymond Kurzweil, author technologies are nearly impossible to of the best -selling Age of Spiritual Ma recall or clean up. chines and the forthcoming The Singu larity is Near, researched many examples Globalization Without Representation of exponential growth trends. He documents not just the Joy understands that the greatest dangers we face ulti changes that we can all feel and see, but also the explosion of mately stern from a world where increasingly global corpo this "scientific progress" and the changes it implies. Yet there rations dominate-a future where much of the world has no is something missing from this discussion of the technologic voice in how the world is run. He writes, "The 21st-century singularity, even from those scientists-like Bill Joy-who GNR technologies have clear commercial uses and are being would rather Kurzweil's vision not happen. developed almost exclusively by corporate enterprises. We This something that is missing is one example of expo are aggressively pursuing the promises of these new tech nential decline .that no singularity advocate is mention nologies within the now-unchallenged system of global ing-the variable left out of the grand equation. The true capitalism and its manifold financial incentives and com cost of technologic progress and the singularity will mean petitive pressures." .the exponential decline of the planet's inhabitants-an Joy believes that the system of global capitalism combined ·ever-increasing rate of global extinction. It becomes readily with our current rate of progress gives the human race a 30- . apparent that nature and technology are not just evolving, 50 percent chance of becoming extinct around the time the , but competing with one another-ultimately there will be singularity happens. He has based his estimates on humanity's ' only one. survival around the speculation of noted philosophers and James Bell is a writer for the national environmental information scientists. He adds, "Not only are these estimates not encour group Sustain based in Chicago. This article is an excerpt from his aging, but they do not include the probability of many horrid forthcoming book on the implications ofthe technological singular outcomes that lie short of extinction." ity. For more information visitwww.technologicalsingularity.info. Page 46 Earth First! Samhain 2001 f=i~+i~ an Vphilf 6a-t+le. lowayel 'fYe.e.clom Free Speaks From Prison continued continued from page 16 changes in my lifetime. I've seen things get worse. I know overall supportive. So if you're out there reading this, that we can only count on ourselves to change things. It is thank you! important for me to be able to say that I gave everything I EF!J: Aware ofthe corruption within the prison system and the had. The responsibility lies with us to stop the destructive possible sentence you could receive, why didn't you take the practices our lifestyle has caused. original plea agreement offered? EF!J: Do you have any regrets? Free: Contrary to popular belief I never got a real deal. Free: Of course. You can't get the sentence I got and not From the get go, I was suspected/accused of being the leader have regrets. But they are not the kind you think. I have of the Earth Liberation Front in the northwest. The first deal regrets about things I didn't get to do. I don't regret lighting for seven-and-a-half years was that I tell on everyone and my that fire. I don't regret the choices that I made. co-defendant Critter. Fuck that. After that, all my deals EF!J: Is there an appeal of your case in the works? offered were 10 years and up. Besides, they wanted me to Free: Yes. I'm using a public defender-who actually plead guilty to acts I didn't do. They wanted me to say I refers to me as a political prisoner. And several attorneys committed a person-to-person crime have volunteered their help, in with intent to hurt someone. That cluding the regional vice president simply wasn't true. of the National Lawyers Guild. So, EF!J: The government has set out to basically I have an awesome legal make an example ofyou with its heavy team. I just hope that they can handed sentence, and it appears to hope accomplish something. that by locking you up that resistance , EF!J: How can activists best support will fade. As the risks and potential you in prison? consequences increase, what can we do Free: OK, I have a list. Personally, to encourage and/or support direct action you can help me by swamping the and sabotage in defense of the Earth? Governor of Oregon with letters Free: The first thing we can do is to about my sentence and case. You stop denouncing it. Stop apologiz can support other political prison ing for it. We need to give over ers, volunteer with a prisoner sup whelming support to those willing port project. Perhaps my greatest to make the sacrifices necessary to ~request: Fight back. Make revolu participate in direct action and sabo ~ tion an everyday part of your life. tage. We need to set up a prisoner Start creating the sustainable com support network, develop a legal ~ munities we talk about. Nothirig fund that is ready to go before it's ~changes unless we make it. needed. There are so many things ~ EF!J: Do you have any other thoughts we can do. Imagine hundreds of or words of wisdom about the future? people stepping forward and claim Free: We are at a critical point in ing credit for something when some herstory right now. Not only eco I know that we can only count on ourselves to one gets busted. logically, but in our human inter EF!J: Can you explain your experi change things. It is important for me to he actions as well. The future is going ence with the prison system? able to say that I gave everything I had. The to be what we make it. We are Free: You don't have the space to responsibility lies with us to stop the either going to end up living in a print my experience with the sys world void of any wild places or tem. Just picture a situation where destructive practices our lifestyle has caused. natural diversity, an oppressive you know you are absolutely power -Jeff"Free" Luers police state monoculture. Or we less, and you know you are going to are going to finally realize that we get screwed over. And there is nothing you can do about it. need to put our differences aside. Come together, learn EF!J: What effects has prison had on you already? from each other and create the world we want to live in. Free: I've closed down. I'm less willing to feel emotion. I The greatest challenge we face is that it is much easier to have a hard time sharing my feelings with my loved ones. accept things as they are and to give up hope than it is to I don't get to walk away from here for another 21 years. I try and make a difference. We have the power, we only can't see the stars or the moon. I can't wake up next to a need to realize it. lover. It affects you in ways you can't ever begin to imagine. Contact the Governor ofOregon, John Kitzhaber, about Free's You become numb. case at the State Capitol Building, 900 Court St NE, Salem, OR EF!J: What gives you the spirit to fight on in the face of 97301-4047; (503) 378-3111. increasing violence against the planet? Free welcomes your letters. Write to him at Jeffrey "Free" Free: Knowing that I don't have a choice. I've watched the Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St, Salem, OR 97310. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 47 There would be new temp BY D. GRANT HAYNES tations to step onto the road Their beady little eyes glis way and explore the beyond tened in the summer light and with their kitten-like naivete. their tiny noses twitched There would be poisonous searchingly as they tried to pesticides and herbicides in make sense of a 24-hour the water they'd find to drink, superstore parking lot en and they'd have to be careful. trance road built across a natu Theairthey'dbreathewould ral pathway their genes tell smell of exhaust fumes, coal them has existed at least fired power plant flues, ter 10,000 years in what is now rible slaughter facilities and a Northwest Arkansas. million other foul human ex They each halted, peered halations that would put a over the curb's edge, sniffed repeatedly; and blinked and skunk's scent glands to shame. listened uncomprehendingly to the din of "prosperity" As the traffic signal changed, eager Northwest Arkansas that has come to a gentle prairie meadow where their businessmen sitting high in the cockpits of air-condi species has lived since before humans arrived in this land. tioned, $50,000 SUVs waited impatiently for the skunk The pair finally backed away from the noise, pollution, admirer to get his venerable old vehicle the hell out of the stench and confusion of rush hour on Hudson Road in way so they could rush home for a frantic Friday night of Bentonville, sensing by whatever process an immature the good life. striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) assesses its world, that the For his part, the driver of the stickered junker-at best an impostor in their meadow was not one to be explored unenthusiastic member of the species that is destroying the further on the afternoon in question. world of those two little Benton County striped skunks The twosome turned and ambled back into the grassy offered a prayer and a benediction as he drove away from the meadow that in all likelihood will see only another season encroached and compromised universe of two wild crea or two before it succumbs to a greedy corporation's manu tures that had graced his life briefly on a Friday afternoon. facturing or sales facility. He hoped the beautiful and harmless little entities he Their noses were still to the ground and their little had seen would make it through their first summer in the white tails skunkishly a plume as they waddled back into Northwest Arkansas world they have inherited-one that the grass, hopefully to the temporary comfort of a burrow is no longer theirs and in which they are suddenly unwel and a mother's love for the night. come aliens. The morrow would bring new threats from the juggernaut He prayed too that his kind-the human species-would of human "progress" that's encroaching on their meadow redefine that which is important before there are no more from every direction. summers, no more meadows and no more striped skunks. Page 48 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Scientists Create Monkeys with Glowing Placentas Ne¥{ steps are being taken toward the use of genetically modified primates in the de velopment of human treatments. Scientists recently created monkeys whose placentas crooked tail and a whole table covered with glow green under ultraviolet light by insert lifeless, furry and feathery animal bodies. ing a gene from a fluorescent jellyfish into Apart from a $21,000 fine, the owners two fertilized rhesus monkey embryos. and local veterinarian may face criminal These genetically modified monkeys are charges for ill-treatment and destruction of expected to provide new insights into preg rare animals. nancy problems such as infertility, recur After its opening in the early 1990s, the rent miscarriage and low birth weight. Bwana Park Zoo drew scores of children In January, scientists at the Oregon Re from Rio de Janeiro and other cities, but gional Primate Center reported the birth of after its founder died earlier this year, plans the world's first genetically modified pri to create a sex club cropped up. mate. The embryos were implanted into two surrogate monkey mothers, both of which became pregnant. Naked Women Go Ape at Scientists said the jellyfish gene did not Monkey Study appear in the infants after birth. Twelve biologists counting monkeys in Kenya were put to flight in February by more than 300 angry, naked women. Frozen Corpses Found in The 12 were conducting a census of the Brazilian Zoo endangered Tana River colobus monkey In August, environmental authorities a project funded by the World Bank-when found more than 80 frozen corpses of ani the women stripped and charged at them. mals which had died of starvation in a zoo· It is thought the women were protesting a near Rio de Janeiro. Among the dead ani plan to tum the area into a nature reserve for mals found in freezers were an African lynx, the primates, which are unique to the area. Asian otter, jaguar, yellow-tongued alliga The incident, in the Tana River district of tor, monkeys and macaws. southeast Kenya, is the latest in a series of The animals could have been abandoned clashes between villagers and Kenya's wild after the Bwana Park Zoo recently tried to life service. The wildlife service is seeking to convert into a sex club. resettle them outside the proposed reserve. Local media showed blood-chilling pic About 2,000 families are affected. tures of an environmental official holding The women were forced to retreat once up the frozen corpse of a small monkey by its police arrived and shots were fired. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 49 WHAT DoEs RAcisM HAvE TO Do WITH Us? coNTINUED continued from page 29 and racial oppression as something that The social groups I'm speaking of build First, the dichotomy between "popula happens when people with mistaken much of their solidarity and sense of tion" and "carrying capacity," like the beliefs or bad morals get hold of privilege and uniqueness on the pre broader one between "humans" and something called power. The prob tense of neutrality and on the continual "nature," often coincides with andre lem of racism from this view is a construction and repair of the very na inforces boundaries used in racial op problem of individuals holding dis ture/human boundaries, which help con~ pression. "Population" in our culture criminatory beliefs or views which stitute racism and ethnic discrimination usually means black people. In fact, it they do not profess in public but hold with the structures of environmental generally means African people, and in private and act on when they can science. Within environmentalism, rac most often, African women and chil getaway with it. It's just the opposite. ism is reproduced not so much by rein dren. Imagine what would happen if Individual Western environmental- ' forcing or "replicating" individuals' an artist commissioned to do a cover ists may advocate anti-racist or anti beliefs, but structural tendencies to pre for a magazine or book on population discriminatory agendas privately and serve professional boundaries between submitted instead a mock-up showing often passionately, but "despite" them science and to maintain a' civic self a wealthywhite family clumped around selves, they are pushed ·in public into image and self-identity. These forms of a television set or working in its garden. actions which reinforce racist or discrimi sociality constitute a deep and continu Or-to be a bit more playful-picture a natory structures by the acceptable prac ing problem for a movement that prac cover photo that, instead of showing tices and repertoires of performance in tices ethnic discrimination in spite of pregnant black women, displayed a the professional arena, including the itself-a movement that, unfortunately, row of anonymous white male groins. arena of peer-reviewed science. The is far more racist than the sum of its parts. No editor in his or her right mind problem is not environmentalists' be Extracted from a talk given at the would pass such covers. They wouldn't liefs, still less their morals, but rather seminar "Environmental Justice in a communicate what is meant in our a form of sociability or "public game" Divided Society," Goldsmiths College, culture by "population," which is, es specific to their sCientific and other Universityo(London, February 25, 20C :'i. sentially, female black fertility. social communities. A condition of Reprinted from the summer issue o( the I've realized that many are accustomed membership in the community is not journal, Greenpepper. For more info., to thinking of ethnic discrimination to probe racism too deeply. visit www.squat.net/cia/gp. Page 50 Earth First! Samhain 2001 BLUE REVOLUTION CONTINUED continued from page 24 announced the results of their sam~ Letterman believes that the right to piing of taco shells from grocery stores .. know what's in one's food is a basic The Taco Bell Home Originals brand right. Those concerned about geneti taco shells contained Star Link corn- · cally engineered fish have requested a genetically modified corn not ap~ , ·. thatatthe minimum, genetically modi proved for human consumption. fied fish should be labeled, complete During the ensuing months, various safety and environmental testing be products thought to contain Star Link conducted and corporate liability be in were recalled. · place to cover any potential harm. "Seafood retailers and restaur~nts' Meanwhile, the FDA sees no reason risk the same cost of sales that tortilla why genetically engineered foods should chips and taco makers suffered due to . require labeling or should be deemed StarLink corn," says Larry Bohlen of unsafe unless the company fails to dem Friends of the Earth. "Corn prices were onstrate scientifically that the allergenic compressed 20 cents per bushel last component of the food is not trans year costing farmers $2 billion. Some ferred to the other item or if the nutri economists contend that 10 cents was tional content of the food is changed. due to Star Link." The FDA's Jim Maryanski said in a Over at Aqua Bounty, the company recent interview that "if we were to sees the critics not unlike the critics of require labeling of all genetically engi any other new technology. "Any new neered fruits and vegetables, it would technology undergoes a level of scru not be merely a matter of putting a tiny," states Entis. "Electricity was sticker on a tomato or a banana. Pro around for six years before anyone ducers would have to segregate the would use it." genetically engineered foods from Shawn Cantel of Friends of the Earth other varieties, whereas normally those thinks comparing the introduction of are all just lumped into a barrel. Then genetically engineered fish to the ad what happens when you make to vent of electricity is a faulty analogy. mato paste and that tomato paste is "This is a new technology, but not all used to make pizzas? Does the label new technologies are equal. Some have have to follow along through the food clear and obvious benefits," says Cantel. processing chain? It would increase "Genetic engineering is one with clear the cost of these foods to consumers and obvious problems. It's like using and would disrupt our complex food nuclear power to make electricity." distribution system." Reprinted from the October issue of In fact, genetically engineered The Fishermen's Voice, a publica foods have already disrupted the tion for small-scale fishing communi country's food processing chain. On ties fighting factory-style fishing and September 18,2000, Friends of the Earth fish farming. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 51 Edward Abbey a, BY DENNIS FRITZINGER Edward Abbey: A Life, by decided to broaden my education by taking a bunch of James M. Cahalan, Univer- science classes-of which desert studies was one. sity ofArizona Press, 2001. I ate it up. And the class too, with a week-long field trip Edward Abbey passed in the Eastern Mojave. As soon as I'd finished Desert away in March 1989-a Solitaire, I came across a newly published book by the same terrible blow to Earth First!. Abbey provided direction, author-The Monkey Wrench Gang. I ate that up too. I was humor, character, inspiration, even money. Abbey taught hooked, and I became one of the legions of waffle stamper us to say exactly what we think about what we love. By wearing Abbey fans. being outspoken, he encouraged others to be outspoken. The socio-cultural climate The Monkey Wrench Gang was By being deeply committed to protecting wilderness, he born into was post-antiwar movement, post-Earth Day. encouraged others to share that commitment. He called There was enormous energy out there, partly created by himself an anarchist, but except for his thinking, he Abbey's earlier writing and partly tapped by it. In a sense didn't show any evidence of it-no black clothes or body Abbey had found an unlocked hotrod, figured out how to piercings. He had the mild demeanor of a college profes- hotwire it and take it for a joyride. sor, which he was on occasion when he wasn't working as The joyride led up Abbey's Road and to Earth First!. a forest service employee. He was wide-read, a criti.cal "The way I defined Earth First! in the beginning stages thinker and hard worker. He was ... well, to get a fuller was that Earth First! was made up of Ed Abbey-style picture I suggest picking up a copy of Cahalan's book. conservationists," explains Dave Foreman. Although not an Abbey scholar myself, Cahalan is, and With the set purpose of demythologizing his subject, he has done an excellent job researching sources, conduct- Cahalan does an admirable job of getting at the man ing interviews, compiling anecdotes. The question re- behind the words. His first chapter is a compelling piece of maining is, what sort of story does he tell? What's his level writing that pulls you right in and doesn't let go. of interpretation? Do we see the man? Or does, under the This book is also a cautionary tale. We find out that blizzard of facts and anecdotes, ••••••••••••••••• Abbey, while writing his incan- the subject remain elusive? descent prose, was in poor I felt that it did. health, barely able to keep up. So much so that I bought a copy "One thing after another fall- ofTheNewWesto(EdwardAbbeyby ing apart" was the way he de- Ann Ronald, and I was immedi- scribed it-brought on by a ately relieved to find myself in the drinking habit reminiscent of middle of a deep, thoughtful ex- the hard-working, hard-drink- ploration of the man's writing. ing journalists in A River Runs Ronald remindedmewhatbrought Through It. Though Cahalan me to Abbey's writing in the first doesn't dwell on it, we know place-the poetry, humor and out- the reason for Abbey's demise spokenness. and feel a lot of pain as the Abbey used his considerable sympathetic individual he pre- skills working toward a goal-jus- sents looks more and more like tice for the "Green World"-in vulture food. both his fiction and non-fiction. Abbey, interestingly, was not This approach turned out to be afraid of death, and he only fortuitous, as each has something had the usual regrets of not the other lacks-you can pull a being around for things that heavier load with two horses on a cart than one. ; had meant a lot to him. I first heard of Edward Abbey in 1976 when I was In the end Cahalan's portrait-clear-eyed yet sympa- assigned Desert Solitaire as part of a desert studies class at · thetic at the same time-won me over. H goes a long way Merritt College in Oakland. I was living off the GI Bill toward revealing the real Edward Abbey and even further (again) after Congress passed an extension. This time I toward answering Abbey's numerous critics. Page 52 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent An Interview with David Rovics art in general, as well as food, helps BY TURTLE to build a community. In terms of Ten years ago, when asked to orga fostering a sense of community, nize a concert for Casey Neill, I felt which helps along with so many he was asking our student group to other factors in actually building the · interrupt the important work we community. "Building a culture of were doing to stop an incinerator in resistance," I like to say. Basically, our small Ohio town and put energy protests without music and art are into something that would reap little really boring, and it's really or no benefit to the cause. We adver disempowering to keep on coming tised the concert little and atten back to boring protests. People tend dance that evening was so small it was laugh able. Yet those who did come were rejuvenated listening to songs of re sistance. I then knew that I had it all back ward. The importance of music to the move ment, the power of song, has been feeding me ever since. I could say the same thing about David Rovics. David is strik ing the chords of activism with his to not do it. But if people can make music and has his own thoughts on a point-and ultimately, of course, the power of song. He is a whirl radically transform society-and wind, constantly touring the US and have fun at the same time, music can abroad, always releasing a new CD communicate to folks in ways that and sharing his music with environ other mediums might not be able to. mental, peace, labor, political pris Takes all kinds. · oner and human rights activists. EF!J: What motivates your work? Since David's music gives life to DR: All of you wonderfulpeople the struggle for justice and is an out there who are working to change inspiration to many, here's an op the world. To quote Abbie Hoffman, portunity to learn a bit about what I'm a cheerleader. I'm inspired by motivates him. activists of various sorts around the world. Of course, I'm also motivated EF!J: As an artist, as well as an by the same sorts of things that make activist, what do you believe is the folks like you become activists in the importance of music to environmental first place. You know, destruction of and social justice movements? the world by horrid multinational DR: My experience has been that corporations and the like. music, along with other things like continued on next page November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 53 continued from previous page EF!J: According to Wobbly minstrel influence people and thus help to EF!J: Who were/are your inspirations Joe Hill, "A pamphlet, no matter how make our world a better place. as a songwriter? How have they influ well-written, is read once and then EF!J: You have a diverse musical rep enced your music? thrown away-but a song lasts for ertoire: some of your songs are inflam DR: In terms of other artists, I guess ever. " What are the songs you've com not. How does I'd have to plug Jim Page of Seattle, posed that live on? who I think is the greatest songwriter DR: Well, in a sense, all songs have in the English language. More than a shelf life. In a few hundred years anyone, Robert Hoyt and Chris Chan we won't recognize our current form dlerwere largely responsible for help of English, so all the songs from this ing me out in terms of going in this era will be unrecognizable, assum general direction as a career, and I ing our species is still alive. The ones think they're both great artists. Oth that are about historical events erwise, there are so many artists I've probably the longest-lasting. been inspired by. All of the usual EF! rent events evolve faster than allow other issues suspects, Casey Neill, Dana Lyons, tory. The relevance of the on the back burner. I'm Peg Millett. Also Woody Guthrie, Pete Patrick Battalion in the offending someone hor- Seeger, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Silvio American War will by saying this, but I believe Rodriguez, Pablo Milanez, VictorJara, true. We're trying to build an John Lennon, the list could go on movement. It feels good to fairly indefinitely. but it doesn't necessarily EF!J: You seem to have a song for a movement. every occasion. Which is your favorite? EF!J: Certainly, you have many tales DR: My favorite is usually which · from the road. How have you grown ever one I've written most recently. I from your travels? What have you like The Dying Firefighter, I suppose. I learned that you did not expect to? was trying to humanize the heroic DR: I guess I feel like I've met so firefighters of New York City, many wonderful people. More, I at the same time humanizing imagine, than I might meet staying people of Afghanistan, and I in one place, butldon'tknow, 'cause pulled it off. As for having a I've never really done that since leav every occasion, some would ing the suburbs as a teenager. More as an accusation, but to me than anything, traveling has brought thing to aspire to. That is, if about the realization that there are write about the subject with good people everywhere doing great ity and passion, work. They often feel really isolated try to do. If it's a from each other, because they don't certainly get to see the world the way I do, to EF!J: Are see that activists are everywhere. Everywhere I go, I find local activ ists, local brilliant intellectuals, lo cal artists, all kinds of folks whose younger, and I'm em names aren't widely known, and it to hear most of it now. pe feels great. People teach me all kinds pleasantly surprised by a ern world, in the of stuff, and I grow as a result, I hope, or two, but mostly it was · so they will act to as a human being and as an artist. songs from my early EF!J: Can a song EF!J: Given you probably believe the terms of more recent thing and make our "strength of one" is "feeble" as the old stuff, like on an DR: I think it who said Wobbly song says, have you ever had artistic . He might any singing partners you'd like to create any of it. doesn't reflect more music with? canceled for any case, I think DR: I've often recorded and Jerusalem, but I stiil reality, the jammed with other artists, which I thing I wrote in the song. true, perhaps to a enjoy tremendously. Singing har wish I could've written the extent. I think that a mony and playing with other instru such a way as to avoid alienating song, like a book or an event or any mentalists is one of life's greatest the Zionists, but sometimes songs number of other things that happen highs (when it's good), right up there have to alienate people. or that can be made to happen, can with making love under the stars or Page 54 Earth First! Samhain 2001 taking over the streets of a city. I like playing solo, but if I had my druthers I'd play with other musicians more often. The main obstacle is having another mouth to feed on the road, but hopefully I'll figure out how to get around that one. EF!J: With your continual touring schedule, how are you able to support yourself? DR: Completely through the efforts of local activists who value music (and mine in particular) and set up paying gigs. As you know, the activist community is perpetually broke, but in spite of that I've been able to feed myself, keep the truck running, go to a dentist every once in a while and come out with new CDs periodically. EF!J: Any last words you'd like to~harewith the EF!Journal? DR: Hope to see you on the road and in the streets! DavidRovics newest CD release (November 2001), Living in These Times, can be ordered from the Earth First! Journal for $17. Songs include, The Dying Firefighter, International Terrorists, Saint Patrick Battalion, and No One is Illegal. To contact David either to book a gig, buy a songbook or CD or just to send your regards, he can be found at POB 995, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130; (617) 747-4460; [email protected]; www.davidrovics.com. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 55 An Alliance of Indigenous Peoples 6 Anarchists The growing movement of resistance to corporate globalization is grounded in a long history of indigenous peoples' struggles against colonization (Westernization). In many parts of the world, indigenous peoples are still resisting. They are fighting against the mercenary forces of global capitalism, our own domestic enemies. Global fascism requires combat from all those affected by it, and those people fighting agaiJilSt civilization must unite. To this end, I wish to be involved with a publishing project that will publicize native peoples' struggles against corporate domina tion and help us in the First World identify their primary enemies here, so that we can combine our efforts and energies. Please contact me if you are interested in undertaking this project. What is necessary to start: •A long-term mailing address. •People with resources, or access to re sources, to assemble, publish and distribute the zine. •People willing to make a commitment to this project. Contact Rob "LosRicos"Thaxton #12112716, OSP, 2605 State St, Salem, OR 97310. The Ouilomho Project First, a survey of anarchists of color. "There is no justifiable reason Then, interviews and reports in the why there aren't more people of anarchist and alternative presses. color who consider themselves an Then, new theories, new projects, archists, other than the fact that new communities, new. .. the explicit proponents of anar Please come, find out about us, par chism in the US have catered to ticipate if you consider yourself an white circles they felt comfort anarchist and a person of color or able in, echoing the huge divide support the project if you don't. along the lines of race that still Contact the Quilombo Project at exist today in the rest ofsociety. 11 POB 8306, Ann Arbor, MI 48170; www.quilomboproject.org. "[Anarchism] is what we make it and what we want it to be, and it must be inclusive and designed by and for the most marginalized groups struggling for liberation. 11 The new Anarchist People of Color (APOC) website has been launched, and we welcome your comments, links, etc. The website emerged from the APOC discussion list and serves to encapsulate many di~cussions and tendencies in the movement-from globalization to tenant/poverty rights organizing to articulating the need for more people 'Of color in the movement to networking with fellow anarchists of color. www.illegalvoices.org/a poe Page 56 Earth First! Samhain 2001 2002 Political Prisoner Calendar Representing freedom fighters from liberation movements and struggles for self determination in Puerto Rico, Mexico, US and Canada, the 2002 Political Prisoner Calendar will raise funds for prisoner medical support. The calendar features information on death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, American Indian Movement prisoner Leonard Peltier and many former members of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army who are still in prison. Also included is information on Triennial the recent history of Native resistance to colonization in Canada, the Puerto Rican Freedom Fighters who remain incarcerated and the Dublin, Ireland prisoners being held in Mexico as a result of the eight month-long "Stories and Strategies-Nonviole.qt Resis student strike at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. tance and Social Change" To order a calendar, send check or money order (made out to QPIRG Under this title, War Resisters' Interna Concordia) $15 for individuals or $25 for organizations. Add $3 tional (WRI) is inviting activists from around shipping for the first calendar and $1 for each additional calendar. the · world to come to Dublin, Ireland Contact the Calendar Committee, c/o QPIRG Concordia, 2130 Mackay from August 3-10, 2002, for WRI's 23rd Tri RM 102, Montreal, PQ H3G, Canada; [email protected]. ennial conference. The conference theme, "Stories and Strate gies for Nonviolent Resistance and Social Change" is especially fitting for a conference in Ireland, where storytelling is a rich part of Irish culture. Sharing stories, from personal A means of distributing books narratives to case studies, is a creative and directly to prisoners, the Inside empowering way to build community among Books Project sends books and lit. peace activists around the world. Everyone erature to people incarcerated in attending the WRI Triennial is encouraged to Texas prisons for free. An all volun bring stories to share about campaigns or teer-run project, the need for In individual efforts at resisting violence and side Books is inexhaustible. building peace. Donations of books, preferably WRI is actively seeking international interest paperback and in usable condition, and support for the Triennial. If you would like are greatly appreciated. to attend or if you would like to support this For more information, contact the effort with a financial contribution, please con Inside Books Project, c/o 12th St tact War Resisters' International, 5 Caledonian Books, 827 W. 12th St, Austin, TX Road, London, N19DX, UK; triennial2002@wri 78701; (512) 647-4803. irg.org; www.wri-irg.org/tri/tri02. Rally to Save the Animas River .. Durango, Colorado· November 9 Congress last year authorized construction of the Animas-La Plata (A-LP) project. $21 million in funding for first year pre-construc :J ··.... tion work was approved by the House of /-- ·--:: -~·---:.~- ''i\ Representati~es. Action in the Senate cou~d -~ ~:::-,:t~· ·.. .J' come at any tlme.lt's not too late to stop 1t! .t/j£f!2';jt_:;;<-?fiJ.~- ~,4'//f' Congress can still do the right thing by not .. -~~~ ,.:.Jf/ 1 •• funding the A-LP boondoggle. November 9 . .1/::; · was the date for the project's groundbreaking, but 1 the ceremony has been canceled. The rally will occur regardless_. Join us for a noontime rally in town fol lowed by a march to the river. This will be a peaceful, family-oriented, nonviolent event. For more infor mation, contact Living Rivers at (435) 259-1063. November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 57 A nonprofit, tax-exempt organization which funds environmental education media. Donations and funding proposals can be St '1lt to: Earth Defense Education Project POB 3023 Thcson AZ 85702 · Note: If you would like your contribution to go Earth First!. Journal, please note it with your donation. Thank you. NO COMPROMISE Concernedc5inq/es ../ No Compromise is the premier source of links compatible, socially conscious , news in the US about the grassroots singles who care about animal liberation movement. Each issue the earth, the environment, is full of news, activist commentary, a and a healthy society. diary of underground actions, Shadow Nationwide • All Ages Activist and our Trenches directory of Straight/Gay • Since 1984 · grassroots animal liberation groups! FREE SAMPLE Subscription Prices (1 year): . Jt:D Box 444-EF $15 Regular $10 Student/low income $20 Outside of US Lenox Dale, MA 01242 No Compromise P.O. 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To sign up, contact (510) 644-2778; 0$75 Corporate or Law Enforcement Rate $ DONATION [email protected]; home. sprin tmail. com/ Credit Card Orders -sfreedkin/earthphone. Or call circle one: Visa I MC Mfinity directly at (800) 670- Card# ______0008 and give these codes to credit the Earth First! Journal: Exp. date------Org #671 05()..000 • Rep #141·0142-85 L------~Page 58 Earth First! Samhain 2001 3:: =til...... ·-(') 3:: =til...... (') DA vm Rov1cs "Living In The $EI.U-I! Project "A Rehearsal AloDkeywTeDchfe~~ These Times" CD-$17 for the Great Uprising" CD-$15 ·- Sterling silver, made from old spoons. Available as 12-inch necklace, lapel pin, and post or dangle earring. Necklace $15 ·- Lapel pin $10 Earrings $10 (each) 3:: =til...... ·-(') name: aU pri"' fo~ on!= odd 15% include shipping! i address: ------Total CREDIT CARD ORDERS I VJSA/MC (CIRCLE ONE) I Rattlesnake "Don't Tread On Mc'" phone: multi-color on ORGANIC dark blue CARD#------t-shirt S, M, L, XL-$15 1 email: ExP. DATE (MONTH/YEAR) I I Mail to: EF! Merchandise, POB 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702. Allow 3-4 weeks for delivery. I L------~ November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 59 THE EFFECTS OF PRISONS beyond the fence, and have to travel into high security areas here in Pennsylvania the to protest logging and road building • I -, _-:':".. ""- .. ~~~~~~ Department of Correc within the forests. ~ .. ;, tions built a firing range I believe that it is imperative that for guards to practice their activists use any means (short of kill marksmanship with fire ing and serious bodily injury) in effort arms, including automatic to halt new prison construction. weapons. Whenever a The capitalist elite and their politi prison is built near a state cians perceive that as they continue to or national forest, the oppress and exploit that there will be a prison will get contracts return to the more disruptive tactics of to build fire roads and to the late 1960s and 1970s. They build harvest trees and use cheap high security prisons so as to insure the inmate labor to do this. space is available to imprison those who And such, a glimpse be are opposed to the New World Order of hind the razor wire shows capitalist exploitation of human beings the tragic environmental and natural resources. The government destruction wreaked by the doesn't even need these prisons now, prison industry. they are building them nationwide to The services that will be be prepared to fill it up with activists, located near the prison ca just as they previously did. ter to the desires of the thousands who will travel or relocate to the area, with motels, fast food restau- rants and gas stations to be built as near to the prison as BY ERIC WILDCAT HALL possible. Privately owned land will be Presenting a first hand look at the bought up by businesses for housing. effects of prisons, prisoner Eric Wildcat Eventually, the whole area will be Hall expresses his thoughts concerning urbanized and become a permanent the building ofprisons in rural areas and Republican district, guaranteeing elec the impacts to the local environment. tion/re-election of the Republican The state puts out poison to kill politician term after term who lob birds that nest within prison com bied for the prison to be built in his/ pounds and destroys the nests and her district. any eggs or young therein. If there is Prisons use surveillance technol even a small body of water nearby ogy and hire additional personale to that will attract geese, they will be counter any potential threats from poisoned or killed in some other family and friends that travel into manner because they are attracted the area to visit a prisoner and to to the large areas of grass inside the discourage any family or friends of prison. Between the fences, prison prisoners from moving into the area. employees will put down gravel They only want pro-government, which will intice killdeer and other pro-police minded people moving ground nesting birds to nest thereon. into the area so as to insure a Repub These nests will also be destroyed, lican majority. This is what rural which is very serious as many ground prison construction is mainly about, nesting birds such as the killdeer are in addition to separating prisoners endangered. At night, the huge from family with long distances be- lights that illuminate the prison at tween them. · tract curious raccoons, opossums Minority visitors to these areas will and porcupines who climb the outer be racially profiled for harassment to fence and eventually get tangled and discourage their visiting a prisoner. caught in the rolls of razor wire. All of which will have an effect on any Woods around the prison will be cut activist groups associated with protec back to at least a 100 foot perimeter tion of the environment, who will Page 60 Earth First! Samhain 2001 . Prisoner Support: They Need Your Support •Mel Broughton, #DJ8216, DCC, 1140 East 10 Rd, Avenue, Bovingdon, Hemel for the arson of a townhouse Serving four years for of 2000. Due to be •Barry Horne; #VC2 Thamesmead, London, Federal Prison Camp, POB [email protected]. Sixmonths of the Americas. Anti-Globalization Dr, Nelsonville, OH 45764. •Robert Thaxton, #1211 October 22 for protesting 97310. Rob threw a rock at Eugene }18 Reclaim the 1, OSP, 2605 State St, Salem, year "mandatory for 11 charges relating to two •Paul Robinson, Goteburg Polis Goteburg, Sweden. One 14 13900, Biella, Italy. actions in Italy. Also, he can serve a 10-year can read French, Pamplona, C/San Roque, Navarra, Spain. Serving on the consruction site Sherwood, Nottingham, two life sentences, having criminal damage to quar FBI agents. quarry. Via Ferrerinoli no 2, MOVE Serving six years and eight Some of the MOVE prisoners construction site in the at the same prison address. can read Spanish, Italian and separately, not as a group. •Debbie Simms Africa (#006308), Janine Philips bridge Springs, 451 Brighton Road, East Sussex, 16403-1238. 28 on suspidon of making • Michael Davis Africa animal and Earth abusers. (#AM4975), SCI Grateford, Lewes, East Sussex, • Edward Goodman years for committing 17011-0200. managing director of •William Philips Africa (#AM4985), SCI Dallas, SW 3rd A,ve, PMB 354, Portland, ~~~~~:: PA 19143. -.. ~, ,..;;;,. ~ -- 583, Lawrence, KS 66044; (913) Support Network, POB 11331, 16 Sholebrooke Ave, Chapelton, Leeds, November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 61 Earth First! Directory ALABAMA The Brokedowns/Elgin Food Not Bombs NEW YORK University of Alabama EF! 308 Sou~h St #15, Elgin, IL 60123 Foghorn POB 860997, Tuscaloosa, AL 35486 (847) 931-9054; POB 889, Westhampton Beach, NY 11978 ua-earthfirst@a ntisocial.com [email protected] (516) 288-2688 ARIZONA INDIANA Love Canal EF! Arizona Wildlands Museum Buffalo Trace EF! (716) 282-7777 POB 24988, Tempe, AZ 85285 POB 3503, Bloomington, IN 47403 OFF! Tucson EF! KANSAS SUNY, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 POB 3412, Tucson, AZ 85722 Tornado Alley Resistance (607) 777-2050; [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Vegan Noise Wildfire Infoshop LOUISIANA [email protected] POB 23552, Flagstaff, AZ 86002 New Orleans EF! Project Harmony [email protected] (504) 561-8182; [email protected] 216 W. 122 St, NY, NY 10027 Phoenix EF! MAINE (212) 662-2878; [email protected] POB 1601, Scottsdale, AZ 85252 Maine EF! NORTH CAROLINA [email protected] 5089 Fox Hill Rd, Athens, ME 04912 Kat6ah EF! CALIFORNIA MASSACHUSETTS POB 1485, Asheville, NC 28802 Bay Area EF! Mass EF! (828) 285-0631; [email protected] POB 83, Canyon, CA 94516 POB 35, Montague, MA 01351 Rustic Revolt (510) 848-8724 Mass Direct Action 112 Barricuda St, Moyock, NC 27958 Environmentally Sound Promotions POB 484, Somerset, MA 02726 (252) 662-2878 POB 2254, Redway, CA 95560 Jon Chance Uwharrie Earth First! (707) 923-4949; [email protected] 72 PeteriJorough St Apt. 31, POB 561, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Fairfax Action Team Boston, MA 02215 · (919) 942-5205; [email protected] POB 393, Lagunitas, CA 94938 (617) 859-8155 NORTH DAKOTA Peninsular Ranges EF! Unci Maka Uonihanpo (Honor POB 4738, Irvine, CA 92616-4738 · ·. ..· Mother Earth) Sonoma County EF! · 29, Ft. Yates, ND 58538 POB 7544, Santa Rosa, CA93107 · (707) 523-1229 Santa Cruz EF!/EF! Radio POB 344, Santa Cruz,.CA 95061 Toledo, OH 43620 (831) 425-3205; [email protected] COLORADO San juan EF! . POB 3204, Durango, CO 8130~ ;;~;- . ·· Art Goodtimes ·· · · POB 1008, Telluride,."A., .. "', .. c," Tim Haugen POB 81, Gulnare, CO 81 FLORIDA . Big Bend EF! POB 20582, Tallahassee, (904) 421-1559 Oceandream POB 1440, Hanalei, (808) 826-1711 ILLINOIS Red Gate EF! 3400 W. lllth St #154, Chicago, [email protected] Page 62 Earth First! Samhain 2001 UTAH Rainbow Keepers Wild Wasatch Front POB 52, Kasimov, 391330 864 W. 700 St, Brigham City, UT 84302 7 (09131) 4-5-14; [email protected] Rainbow Bridge EF! SCOTlAND [email protected] GlasgowEF! VERMONT POB 180, Glasgow G4 9AB Biodiversity Liberation Front (0)41 636 1924/339-8009 P.OB 57, Burlington, VT 05402 424 3688 (fax); [email protected] VIRGINIA Fife EF! Virginia EF! Rt 1 Box 250, Staunton, VA (540) .885-6983 . EF! Collective 321 S. Laurel St, lUChRJ~t>. n(tl (804) 643-5190; earthfirstRV'""''''"'·u-• DC .·.·· · · ·· · .. · · · · :. · ··. ifl~ps) ·. -Near ·• .. •·~-·''-POB 322;- Kiev-252'187····''' --· POB229 7 38 (044) 265-7628; 550-6068 (fax); ISRAEL [email protected] International Green Action Israel WALES POB 4611, Tel-Aviv, 61046 Gwynedd & Mon EF! There is an international Earth First! web 972 (0) 3 516 2349 The Greenhouse, 1, Trevelyan Terrace page at: www.snet.co.uk/ef/ THE NETHERLANDS Bangor, Gwynedd LL5 7 lAX Groene Front! 01248-355821 AUSTRALIA Postbus 85069, 3508 AB, Utrecht EF! Australia tel/fax 31-84-8666018; [email protected] POB 1059, Maleney, Qld 4552 PHILIPPINES Projects 6 Campaigns Ariel Betan, Green Forum [email protected] Bioengineering Action Network Rainforest Information Centre 3rd Floor, Liberty Building [email protected]; www.tao.ca/ -ban POB 368, Lismore, NSW 2480 Pasay Road, Makati, Metro Manila (066) 21-85-05 (2) 816-0986, 851-110, 818-3207 Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers CANADA Volunteers for Earth Defense POB 7941, Missoula, MT 59807 EF! Montreal & Diffusion Noire 189 San Antonio Ext. SFDM (406) 728-0867; [email protected] 1105 Quezon City c/o Librairie Alternative EF! Direct Action Fund 2035 St. Laurent, 2 e etage EF! Campaign East M. Mla. Montreal, Quebec H2X 2T3 POB 176, Tagig Central PO 1632 Tagig, POB 210, Canyon, CA 94516 Elaho EF! M. Mla. tel/fax (925) 376-7329 (604) 682-3269 x.6144; POLAND End Corporate Dominance [email protected] Workshop for All Beings HCR 82, Fossjl, OR 97830 CURACAO U.]asna 17, 43-360 Bystra (541) 468-2028 EF! Curiu;:ao tel/fax 48-33-817 -14-68; POB 4893, Willemstad, Cura~ao , [email protected] Warrior Poets Society Netherlands Antilles In Defense of the Earth POB 14501, Berkeley, CA 94712 599-9-4616256 (fax); Towarzystwo Ekologiczne Earth Liberation Front "W Obroniezierni" Dornonika Baryla [email protected] www.earthliberationfront.com CZECH REPUBLIC ul. Limanowskiego 138/42 91-038, Lodz Zeme Predevsim 48-42-653-38-16; [email protected] North American ALF Press Office POB 237, 160 41 Prague 6 RUSSIA POB 3673, Courtenay, BC [email protected]; ECODEFENSE! V9N 7P1, Canada www.ecn.cz/zemepredevsim POB 1477, 236000 Kaliningrad, Russia (250) 703-6312; (419) 858-9065 (fax); Car Busters Magazine & Resource Center 7 (0112) 44-84-43; Kratka 26, 100 00 Praha 10 [email protected] [email protected]; www.animalliberation.net (420) 2781-0849; 781-67-27 (fax); Rainbow Keepers (10 local groups) [email protected] POB 14, Nizhni Novgorod, 603082 Send directory changes to: .!illlli (8312) 34-32-80 Earth First! Journal An Talamh Glas c/o Robert Rainbow Keepers (Moscow) [email protected] (095) 954-91-93 POB 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702 November-December 2001 Earth First! Page 63 DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA A Modest Proposal misery is unimaginable to any species, human, tree or bird that still has a heart, sap or song. Anarchy would assert that these folks can some how be awakened, that they can be empowered, saved, shown the light or liberated. Or even better, that they will one day decide to save themselves. Let's face it though, most people suck. They are neither capable of, noi willing to master their own lives, and it's for their own good-and the good of all-if we eat the fucking sheep. Yes, cannibalism is the tactic I am advocating, though admittedly it isn't for everybody. Unlike most of our other tactics, its effectiveness does not depend on gaining recruits or having a critical mass. It satisfies not only the stomach, but also the conscience of that rare person who feels that it's not enough to sym bolically "defend" the wild, but more than anything longs to be wild. Cannibalism is strategically sound and is an example of the permaculture multi-use principle at its best. Not only does it reduce both overpopulation and global starva tion, but eating the rich would serve to free up much needep resources. This, turn in, will relieve some of the environmental strain caused by overconsumption while simultaneously helping the economy. It does not dilute its message for a media sound bite, but instead bites the anchorperson in the throat. Instead of patlH~tically begging politicians for table scraps, we can have-them for the main course. Imagine ... savage tribes of high schoolers head hunting in the burnt remains of Wall Street. Artists and activists-malnourished no longer practicing with their homemade bows on the slowest, most bountiful game while it lasts. The once starving milliOns now exchanging recipes for "country fried capi talist" over dinner and canning colonialists for later con sumption. And Buddha-bellied ex-gangsters lounging around in recovering clearcuts, picking their teeth and BY ]OHN RoBBINS belching beside their cook fires. Wild critters are alive until they're dead. Unfortunately, The pacifists will be opposed, but they are the most most Americans these days are neither alive nor totally dead. nutritious anyway, with all their special diets and wheat They sleep but do not dream, and they breathe but never very grass enemas. The strict vegans will have to overcome some deeply. They stumble through their days and argue dogma-or else arm themselves. Some folks may be too unconvincingly (between complaints) that they are happy. nasty to eat, but we .can still hunt them for sport. Medication and entertainment keep people numb and dis So broil a bureaucrat, roast a republican, try some mon tracted. Elation and anguish are strangely absent from their arch-a-la-king. Pass me a copdog. Do you know what they lives, just as large predators are missing from the landscape. put in those things? Saute a CEO and try some fried Statistically, stubbed toes and paper cuts are the main source Freddies with capitalist custard and papal sauce. Just cut of adrenalineforthemiddleclass. Though theycanmusterup out the bad parts and cook the rest well! tears for strangers who died in the latest plane wreck or for John Robbins is an angry kid who doesn't believe in killing Oprah's tragic guest, they seem to come up a quarter short for ;' anything more beautiful than himself. He hasn't tried any of the bum in their doorway. They'll never experience a gore ' the tactics that he suggests here-and he'd never admit it ifhe wound, tumble down a mountain or even get punched in the· had. He's waiting until he finds his band of wannabe feral nose. Their pain is worse. It's the suffering caused by an were-revolutionaries, and until then he's sitting around fanta atrophied spirit. In few cases can it ever be cured, and the sizing about it. Page 64 Earth First! Samhain 2001 Warren Stephens Steven Paul Jobs August Busch III Maurice Greenberg Vance D. Coffman Jack M. Greenberg Stephens Inc. Apple Anheuser-Busch American Inti. Group Lockheed Martin McDonald's Corp. Michael Eisner William Esrey Bernard Ebbers George J. Harad Robert Shapiro Phillip H. Knight Walt Disney Spring FON World Com Boise Cascade Monsanto Nike Arthur Levinson Wm. Stravropoulos Carleton Fiorina Sanford Weill Earl F. Inglehart Lee R. Raymond Genentech DOW Chemical Hewlett-Packard Citigroup Peabody Group Exxon Mobil John F. Welch Gerald Levin Michael Dell Luis Gerstner Jr. Dr. Ray R. Irani Charles Hurwitz General Electric AOL Time- Warner Dell Computer IBM Occidental Petroleum Maxxam The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and the people who are killing it have names and addresses. Daily Planet Publishing - Earth First! Journal Nonprofit Organization POB 3023 US Postage Tucson AZ 85702 PAID USA Tucson AZ Permit No 120 Address Service Requested 510 P1 .... 11 .. 1.11.1 .. 11 ... 1... 11 A red check mark means your subscription has expired. Time to renew.