News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
*****
Eugene Weekly http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/11/22/coverstory.html Flames of Dissent The local spark that ignited an eco-sabotage boom -- and bust STORY BY KERA ABRAHAM
This is the third piece in a five-part series providing local context for a surge of environmentally motivated sabotage crimes that flared across the West from 1996 to 2001. Since December 2005 the federal government has indicted 18 people for the crimes, mainly arsons, in a sweep known as Operation Backfire. Of those indicted, 12 have now pleaded guilty, four are fugitives and one committed suicide in jail. One has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
None of those indicted have agreed to speak with EW as they await sentencing, but most were connected to Eugene's eco-activist scene in its peak years. Except in cases where they have left a record, we minimize their mention here.
In an effort to include more voices in this part of the story, EW has agreed to protect some sources' identities by using their activist names, or in one case, changing a name altogether.
Finally, we use terms such as "eco-radicals," "Eugene anarchists" and "anarcho-feminists" loosely throughout this text. While generally referring to the shifting community of people who concentrated in the Whiteaker neighborhood, resisted authority and fought for environmental and social causes, the terms are imprecise. Anarchy by definition is autonomous and unorganized; statements about the community in general do not necessarily apply to every individual associated with it.
Part. III: Eco-Anarchy Imploding
Kari Johnson surveyed the chaos through a pair of swim goggles, a bandana over her nose and mouth to filter the tear gas, and steered her partner, Randy Shadowalker, through the teeming streets of downtown Seattle. He peered through the lens of a small hand-held video camera, recording the Nov. 30, 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization.
An estimated 50,000 people had descended on the city to resist a global economy that, from their perspective, treated workers, nature and consumers as mere cogs in a money-making machine. A small group of those protesters, mostly darkly clad young anarchists known as "the black bloc," destroyed the property of corporations that they felt represented the evils of globalized capitalism.
What Johnson witnessed remains etched in her memory seven years later: A mainstream news van with its tires slashed, its metal body covered with graffiti. The smashed-in window of a jewelry store, its alarm blaring, its diamonds exposed. A man splayed spider-like on the wall of a corporate shoe store, bear-hugging the letters one at a time -- N, I, K, E -- then ripping them off and tossing them down to a cheering crowd.
Johnson periodically shuttled Shadowalker's tapes to Tim Lewis and Tim Ream, charismatic activists who'd been stirring up the anarchist scene in Eugene. The two Tims spent the night of Nov. 30 in a Seattle editing studio, jacked up on adrenaline as they cobbled together a 35-minute video called RIP WTO N30. By 2 pm the next day they were selling the film, a choppy but intense sampling of the heaviest day of WTO protests -- most of it recorded by Lewis himself -- at five bucks each in the streets. From there, it would make its way to news outlets throughout the world.
Maybe media took their cue from Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, who publicly blamed the property destruction on Eugene anarchists just days before resigning, or from Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey, who lamented to reporters that Eugene was "the anarchist capital of the United States."
Whatever the reason, it seemed that national media had made their collective decision: Eugene anarchists were responsible for vandalizing downtown Seattle, provoking police to assault nonviolent protesters and paralyzing the WTO convention. Reporters for 60 Minutes, Harper's and Rolling Stone swooped on this small city, inviting the notorious anarchists to explain their behavior at the Battle of Seattle.
And while a few loud-mouthed, hard-talking men stepped up to the task -- most dominantly Tim Lewis, Tim Ream, John Zerzan, Robin Terranova and Marshall Kirkpatrick -- many others within the local eco-radical community rolled their eyes. Hundreds of WTO protesters from Eugene were peaceful, they noted, and people from all over the country had joined the black bloc. Of the 570 protesters arrested at the WTO protests, Seattle police identified only four from Eugene.
"I don't think five or six Eugene hoodies went up there and shut down the city of Seattle," Shadowalker said. "Media attention after the WTO gave birth to what I call the Anarchy Rock Star, and all these other people got tuned out."
Those other people were the feeders and the feminists of the movement, the planters of gardens, the militant vegans, the artists and techno-geeks, animal lovers, labor advocates and zine-writers.
They had come together in the late '90s to oppose the government, corporations and cops -- all the institutions they saw destroying free spirits and wild places. And after the WTO protests, they were finally getting international attention for it. "Then it came down to what we wanted to do with that," eco-radical Chris Calef later reflected by email, "but it turned out we had very little agreement amongst ourselves on the specifics."
That discord manifested in internal debates about gender roles within the movement, violence versus nonviolence, anarchists versus green hippies and the typical dramas of a cliquish community. "All the while we're dealing with police informants and infiltrators and state oppression that served to exacerbate the distrust," Calef added, "and basically just pour gas on the fire."
From the end of the Warner Creek forest blockade in 1996 to the sentencing of Jeff "Free" Luers in June 2001, Heather Coburn saw eco-radical women doing the work that was most critical to the movement but drew the least media attention: housing, feeding, educating and entertaining the growing masses of activists. "During the heyday of anarchism, even though it was the camo-clad men doing most of the talking, almost all of those projects were being bottom-lined logistically by women," she said.
Coburn was among those unsung heroines. In 1998 she and two others took on the lease for Ant Farm, one of several communal pads where hundreds of scrappy activists crashed over the next three years. She ran an all-women's show called "Vaginal Discharge" on the pirate radio station Radio Free Cascadia and co-organized the "Free Skool" classes that spread activism skills throughout Whiteaker. As a volunteer with Food Not Bombs, she scavenged surplus food from local businesses and served it to hungry people in neighborhood parks. In 1999 she and a friend dug a garden into Scobert Park and launched an urban gardening movement called Food Not Lawns.
Another caretaker of the movement was Shelley Cater, a friendly single mother then in her 30s who managed Out of the Fog, an organic coffee house by the Amtrak station. Cater invited Fall Creek forest defenders to hold meetings in the café, opened her 5th Ave. home as a campaign headquarters, shuttled donated food and supplies to the aerial village and relieved tree-sitters between rotations. The Fall Creek activists, mostly males under 25, started calling her "Mom."
A few stalwart women also hung up in the trees -- including a woman called Warcry, a smart and fiery activist who'd come to Oregon after sitting in the redwoods of California's Headwaters Forest. She relished the Fall Creek activists' fuck-y'all, flag-burning attitude, so different from the peacenik vibe at Headwaters. "In Northern California you couldn't burn an American flag," she said with a laugh. "Right up the road in Eugene, it was kind of expected of you."
But not all Fall Creek women felt safe in the forest. According to an article in Earth First! Journal ("Confronting Oppression, Aug.-Sept. 2001), men were doing most of the cool engineering work -- hoisting platforms into the trees, stringing rope bridges between the tree-sits, teaching one another to use the climbing gear -- without passing that knowledge onto their female counterparts. Worse, some creepy dudes were allegedly harassing and sexually assaulting women, but male activists weren't willing to kick out offenders who had valuable skills. "We became pessimistic and depressed with the situation," wrote the article's anonymous authors.
In early 2001 the women took a stand and asked four men to leave Fall Creek, two of them for good. During a "gender-bender" month, only women occupied the tree village, teaching each other forest survival skills while men in town organized funds, gathered donations and brought them food -- albeit reluctantly. "The men were totally against that," Cater said.
In Eugene, the gender divide was only getting worse. One woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation -- we'll call her "S." -- became alarmed around 2000 when an eco-anarchist allegedly commented that he would rape a woman for the revolution. S. launched what she called an anarcho-feminist counter-movement, criticizing and publicly shunning the activists who she felt were fostering abuse -- a list that started small, but widened to include even well-known feminists such as Heather Coburn and Kari Johnson. "There was a lack of analysis of white, male, able-bodied, hetero privilege," S. said. "There's no way a movement can sustain itself if it's not built from the bottom up and if all of us haven't addressed our cultural oppression."
The anarcho-feminists' work did prompt some people within the movement to make changes. Most media and activist groups adopted anti-oppression policies, and the question of privilege became one that every activist confronted. But not everyone appreciated it -- least of all Tim Lewis, who was perhaps the biggest target of the anti-patriarchy movement. "There was a major attack on men by women who felt like men had too much power in the community," he said. "Some men left town because they were literally threatened with murder or having their balls cut off."
The turmoil fueled debates that blazed across a growing number of home-grown independent media forums: on the public-access TV show Cascadia Alive!, which aired weekly from 1996 to 2004; on anarchist philosopher John Zerzan's show, Radio Anarchy, which began on Radio Free Cascadia and continues today on KWVA; in the pages of Earth First! Journal, which was based in Eugene from 1993 to 2001, as well as in Green Anarchy magazine; and in the films and reports produced by Cascadia Media Collective, which Randy Shadowalker launched in summer 2000.
The media surge stoked more discontent from behind-the-scenes activists who felt that the movement's largely hard-edged spokespeople didn't accurately represent them. Shadowalker saw a cliquish, badder-than-thou attitude begin to dominate the eco-anarchist scene, alienating its natural allies on the left -- people who sympathized with the movement but lived within the mainstream. "When that [alliance] was gone, the spell was broken," he said. "It almost went poof."
Other eco-anarchists saw liberals as unnecessary allies, hopelessly trying to reform a political system whose very existence they opposed. "People were tired of being told what to do or how to act by these PC motherfuckers," Lewis said.
Compounding the internal strife, federal investigations made Eugene anarchists edgy, paranoid and suspicious of infiltrators. An ongoing string of incendiary crimes in the Pacific Northwest brought the FBI magnifying glass ever-closer to Eugene, directing a hot beam of surveillance onto the scene.
On Dec. 25, 1999, arsonists placed gift-wrapped buckets of fuel rigged with kitchen timers around the Monmouth, Ore. offices of lumber company Boise Cascade, burning the place to ashes. Days later the arsonists explained why in a communiqué sent to ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh: "Boise Cascade has been very naughty. After ravaging the forests of the Pacific Northwest, Boise Cascade now looks toward the virgin forests of Chile. Early Christmas morning, elves left coal in Boise Cascade's stocking."
Five days after the Boise arson, saboteurs toppled a BPA tower near Bend.
Activists report that police closed in on the scene -- tailing them after demonstrations, snooping outside their punk parties, snapping photos of them in the streets. Tim Ream, convinced that the feds were preparing to raid his house, nailed legal statutes pertaining to searches on his front door. "What does it mean to hang out with your lover in your house when you feel like you're being bugged?" he asked. "It's a weird space to live in."
Lacey Phillabaum sat somberly in front of a bed of poppies in Whiteaker, her face darkened by night shadows, and justified the black bloc's behavior at the Battle of Seattle. "There's nothing in the world like running with a group of 200 people all wearing black," she said, blue eyes fixed on a point beyond Tim Lewis' camera, "and realizing each of you is anonymous, each of you can liberate your desires, each of you can make a difference right there."
It was mid-June 2000, just days before the premiere of Lewis' documentary about the combustible trinity: Eugene, anarchy and the WTO -- then called Smash!; now titled Breaking the Spell. Anarcho-feminists had been calling Lewis an attention-hogging sexist for months, and now he figured he better get a woman to host his film. Phillabaum, an articulate and bold activist who had been an EF!J editor from 1996-1999, was an obvious choice. She would later regret agreeing to it.
It had been a heavy couple of months. Phillabaum and others, under the banner Eugene Active Existence, had organized the Seven Weeks Revolt!, a roster of community education, street theater and resistance rallies that actually spanned about eight weeks. It kicked off around April 24, when more than 100 people gathered in front of the Lane County Jail to hold a candlelight vigil for jailed Philadephia journalist and convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Police alleged that protesters blocked traffic, ignored orders to disperse and, in one instance, kicked a burning can at them. Protesters, in turn, accused the cops of showing up in excessive "robo-gear," intimidating and assaulting them. Police fired rubber bullets at one demonstrator and arrested eight.
Eugene anarchists became the boogeymen of the Northwest, repeatedly blamed for police overreactions at protests. When a group of Eugene radicals joined more than 300 demonstrators in Portland during a May Day march, some 100 cops fired beanbag shots and slammed horses and ATVs into the mass, injuring at least 20 people. Portland's police chief blamed Eugene anarchists for the excessive police presence, just as cops in Tacoma, Wash., cited rumors of Eugene anarchist mischief when explaining why 350 cops showed up at a canceled steelworkers' union protest in March.
In the wee hours of June 16, 2000, activists Jeff "Free" Luers and Craig "Critter" Marshall drove from a northwest Eugene warehouse to the Joe Romania Chevrolet dealership on Franklin Boulevard, where they set fire to three pickup trucks in protest of gas-guzzling culture. After they drove away, Springfield police pulled them over for a busted headlight at the request of undercover Eugene police who had been following the pair. That day, Eugene police raided the warehouse where Luers lived and Chris Calef was leaseholder.
The next night, after Lewis' documentary Smash! premiered on the UO campus, masked activists in black marched toward the Lane County jail to rally for Luers and Marshall. Police again showed up in riot gear, arresting about 40 protesters who linked arms in resistance. Police broke them up with pain holds and pepper spray; one officer allegedly hit a professional videographer in the head with a flashlight.
The following day marked the one-year anniversary of the June 18, 1999 protest, and activists held another protest rally downtown. Police arrested 37 demonstrators, and an officer struck a KLCC reporter with a baton on the head, the blow landing on her headphone band.
In August 2000, the Eugene police released a report absolving themselves of all wrongdoing during the Seven-Weeks Revolt! protests.
A spate of federal laws stiffened the penalties for eco-sabotage during those volatile years. As the FBI's counter-terrorism budget grew, Joint Terrorism Task Forces increasingly looped local cops into the surveillance of radical environmentalists. The May 1999 Juvenile Justice Bill made it a federal crime to share information on bomb-making and created a central database called the "Animal Terrorism and Ecoterrorism Incident Clearinghouse." In March 2001 the Oregon House passed two bills expanding the definition of organized crime to include sabotage against animal enterprises and the timber industry, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Warcry noted these developments in an article in the Earth First! Journal ("The Criminalization of Ecology," Aug.-Sept. 2001).
Still, eco-sabotage burned hotter across the Pacific Northwest. In September 2000 arsonists singed the EPD's West University Public Safety Station, and four months later the Superior Lumber offices in Glendale, Ore., burned to the ground. On March 30, just as Luers was about to go to trial -- "Critter" Marshall had already pleaded guilty and received five and a half years -- eco-anarchists attacked Joe Romania Chevrolet a second time, damaging more than 30 SUVs. ELF claimed responsibility in a March 31 communiqué, noting that although Luers and Marshall had been charged with torching the same lot a year earlier, "The techno-industrial state . . . cannot jail the spirit of those who know another world is possible."
Less than two months later came the double whammy, the biggest arson the anarchists had seen since the 1998 blaze at the Vail Mountain ski resort. On May 21, 2001 activists burned an office and 13 trucks at Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore. On the same day, they torched the office of a biochemist who was doing research on genetically engineered poplar trees at the University of Washington. ELF claimed responsibility in a June 1 communiqué, linking the two arsons and denouncing GE tree research.
On June 11, 2001, Judge Lyle Velure sentenced Luers to 22 years and eight months in Oregon State Penitentiary for arson at the Romania dealership and attempted arson at Tyree Oil Inc. in Whiteaker -- a penalty stiffer than that handed to some rapists and murderers. More than a slap on the wrist or even a rap on the knuckles, it was as if Velure had chopped off the hand of Eugene's eco-anarchist community.
More blows followed in quick succession: In July 2001, Italian military police shot and killed a masked protester at the G8 trade summit in Genoa. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, followed by the free-speech-chilling PATRIOT Act. Eugene anarchists would help light one more arson in mid-October, burning down a hay barn and releasing 200 horses and burros from the BLM Wild Horse Facility in northeast California.
Eugene's eco-radicals may have been aware of the arsons, and some even impressed, but few say they suspected that the saboteurs were members of their own community. "Half of the arsonists were good friends of mine at one point or another while the actions were going on," Heather Coburn said, "and I had no idea."
She still has a hard time accepting that that one of her own housemates was involved in just about all of the sabotage.
It wasn't just the sabotage crimes and their consequences that squelched eco-anarchy in Eugene. Most involved activists agree that by mid-2001, Eugene's eco-anarchist scene had imploded on its own.
One exception was the Fall Creek activists, who hung tough in the trees even after an environmentalist lawsuit forced the Forest Service to dramatically reduce the size of the planned logging in order to protect the red tree vole. They hung on until Zip-O-Log Mills finally gave up its plans to log the remaining 24 acres. In 2003 they finally came down from the tree village, having spared 96 acres of forest from chainsaws since "Free" Luers made the first tree-sit in 1998.
Meanwhile, Eugene's eco-radicals moved on to other endeavors. Some moved away and kept up their activism elsewhere. Some stayed and pushed forward with above-ground environmental projects based out of Eugene. A few ended up in prison; still others moved on to college, families, mortgages, 9-to-5s. And although the movement's dissipation saddened some activists, it also sparked new endeavors. "For me, the most radical things we did were in the process of falling apart and then getting back together as individuals," Coburn said.
But four years after the movement deflated, it would return to haunt everyone involved -- dragging 10 activists who thought they'd moved on with their lives before federal courts in Eugene. The feds hadn't closed the books on the eco-anarchists yet.
I am a bit surprised to be called a vigilante in EW ("Flames of Dissent II," 11/9), and would like to make a comment.
Just a few years prior to the history told in Kera Abraham's article, I had been nearly killed twice during street rioting in Kathmandu while covering the revolution as a photojournalist for a European news agency. That revolution brought down one of the world's last monarchs, and was bloody and dangerous. People standing next to me on the street were shot dead, bone and brains disgorged. To be confronted in my own neighborhood in Eugene not long after by radical politicos shouting intimidating bullshit slogans, who were not honest and who were targeting the innocent for brutality, was for me like being heckled by bantams. What most surprised me was that many of my neighbors were afraid and confused, yet of good heart and right intent.
Kera got the timeline slightly confused, understandably so for a story so complex. It was first the Scobert Park incident, in which the citizenry went through an intense and proper public debate about how to end the debauch taking place there, that showed the community that the newly arrived rads were bent on hijacking public process, not on joining and participating. It was, for them, about cop-baiting, and Whiteaker was their chosen bait.
For Whiteaker residents, many of whom intentionally live here because of our diversity, radical ideologies are welcome and the choir wishes to be preached to. But as with other radical movements we've seen, the Charlie Mansonoids eventually arrive, the poison Kool-Aid is served and the choir sings off-key. Sadly, the beautiful green tones of the movement morphed into jagged black dissonance. When one of the black-shirts fired a rifle through the front door of the Red Barn one night as his way of counting coup against life's cruel injustices, my gloves flew off.
There was significant injury done to the community by both the anarchists and the heroin/meth epidemic during this time. Whiteaker, like the Balkans, has been a crossroads and a dumping ground for other jurisdictions' social problems and political failures. A very high percentage of all social services for the region are located in Whiteaker, as are the cheapest high-density apartments, the state's parolees and the 400-bed Mission just next to the railyard. People get tired of a stacked deck, and eventually there is a social disaster and a public reaction. Complicate this scenario with an unresponsive city government and a new influx of angry outsiders with their own agenda, and a lot of hostility can be generated.
In our case the citizens eventually won but paid a high price, and I suppose I shouldn't mind being called names over it even at this late date, as long as there is some appreciation for the historical reality that if no one ever has the courage to stand up and shout bullshit to fascist posturing, even while the choir sings a different tune, mayhem and malevolence in the guise of liberty and justice will again take the stage. We deserve a happier script.
Dennis Ramsey, Eugene
POLITICAL CONTEXT
Kudos to Kera Abraham for her brave attempt to cover the eco-radical movement in Eugene! It's a tough issue to write about, and she's giving it a heck of a good shot.
I do feel the need to clarify my quote in the second article ("Flames of Dissent II," 11/9): "If it's violence and mayhem [that bring attention to the issues], then fuck it". The context of that was that the mainstream media seem unable to report on anything but violence and mayhem. To penetrate the wall of corporate propaganda, people who have something to say often have to go to the streets in order to say it.
Something else that could have been stressed more in the article is the political context in which these protests occurred. In 1999 we didn't have the Bushes to blame for the state of the world, and we did not have the hope of electing a Democrat who would make things better. We had a Democrat in power, and what did we get from it? We got the Salvage Rider, outlawing any form of legal challenge to many old growth timber sales. We had the president's unmitigated support for neoliberal trade policies that were effectively enslaving and even killing farmers and workers, from Nigeria to Korea to the maquiladoras in Mexico. Even with a Democrat in power, our country still refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol or take active steps toward nuclear disarmament.
These are not abstract issues that a rational, responsible person can simply ignore or timidly debate. They were, and still are, life and death issues that must be confronted and resolved, by whatever means possible.
Chris Calef, Eugene
FIGHT THE POWER
Michael "Ike" Terrance (11/16) is "extremely appalled" by Kera Abraham's "history of eco-terrorism in Eugene." His letter is patronizing, self-righteous and all too typical. So many know-nothing know-it-all liberals feel the need to denounce ELF at every opportunity, declaring their loyalty to "law and order" and the status quo instead of the community and the natural world.
Memo to Ike: Social change is made by people willing to get their hands dirty. Power concedes nothing without a fight, never has, never will. No amount of tofu eating and ass kissing by the likes of you will change this historical fact. Expecting big business and government to do anything other than carry on trashing the planet, invading countries, looting resources and exploiting people is fatally naïve.
That does not make the ELF beyond criticism. Their tactics are often flawed, and illegal clandestine groups are no substitute for a social/environmental mass movement. But comparing these people to al-Qaeda and giving their captives harsher punishment than right-wing vigilantes who target minorities or sexual predators who target children is inexcusable.
I applaud Kera Abraham for her background series on anarchism and environmentalism in Eugene. Contrary to what Ike says, many people are interested in this piece of our history. There are many lessons to be drawn from the experience.
*****
-- Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_ http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/ News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an *anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!" -- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in _Detective Comics_ #608
Patrick
2006-11-26 09:12:04 EST
Dan,
-- ... Something else that could have been stressed more in the article is the political context in which these protests occurred. In 1999 we didn't have the Bushes to blame for the state of the world, ... --
I was a National Weather Service (NWS) career hydrologist from 1976-2005. In January of 2000 I began my efforts to learn about climate and hydrologic change in the Upper Midwest and global warming.
Although I was removed from federal service by NWS on July 15, 2005 due to my efforts in climate change and hydrology in the Upper Midwest, suspensions issued to me by NWS in year 2000, also due to my efforts in climate change and hydrology - during the final year of Clinton/Gore - were used by NWS as evidence for their need to remove me in 2005. Additional information can be found in my Google and Yahoo profiles.
Pat
Dan Clore wrote: > News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo > > ***** > > Eugene Weekly > http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/11/22/coverstory.html > Flames of Dissent > The local spark that ignited an eco-sabotage boom -- and bust > STORY BY KERA ABRAHAM > > This is the third piece in a five-part series providing > local context for a surge of environmentally motivated > sabotage crimes that flared across the West from 1996 to > 2001. Since December 2005 the federal government has > indicted 18 people for the crimes, mainly arsons, in a sweep > known as Operation Backfire. Of those indicted, 12 have now > pleaded guilty, four are fugitives and one committed suicide > in jail. One has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. > > None of those indicted have agreed to speak with EW as they > await sentencing, but most were connected to Eugene's > eco-activist scene in its peak years. Except in cases where > they have left a record, we minimize their mention here. > > In an effort to include more voices in this part of the > story, EW has agreed to protect some sources' identities by > using their activist names, or in one case, changing a name > altogether. > > Finally, we use terms such as "eco-radicals," "Eugene > anarchists" and "anarcho-feminists" loosely throughout this > text. While generally referring to the shifting community of > people who concentrated in the Whiteaker neighborhood, > resisted authority and fought for environmental and social > causes, the terms are imprecise. Anarchy by definition is > autonomous and unorganized; statements about the community > in general do not necessarily apply to every individual > associated with it. > > Part. III: Eco-Anarchy Imploding > > Kari Johnson surveyed the chaos through a pair of swim > goggles, a bandana over her nose and mouth to filter the > tear gas, and steered her partner, Randy Shadowalker, > through the teeming streets of downtown Seattle. He peered > through the lens of a small hand-held video camera, > recording the Nov. 30, 1999 protests against the World Trade > Organization. > > An estimated 50,000 people had descended on the city to > resist a global economy that, from their perspective, > treated workers, nature and consumers as mere cogs in a > money-making machine. A small group of those protesters, > mostly darkly clad young anarchists known as "the black > bloc," destroyed the property of corporations that they felt > represented the evils of globalized capitalism. > > What Johnson witnessed remains etched in her memory seven > years later: A mainstream news van with its tires slashed, > its metal body covered with graffiti. The smashed-in window > of a jewelry store, its alarm blaring, its diamonds exposed. > A man splayed spider-like on the wall of a corporate shoe > store, bear-hugging the letters one at a time -- N, I, K, E > -- then ripping them off and tossing them down to a cheering > crowd. > > Johnson periodically shuttled Shadowalker's tapes to Tim > Lewis and Tim Ream, charismatic activists who'd been > stirring up the anarchist scene in Eugene. The two Tims > spent the night of Nov. 30 in a Seattle editing studio, > jacked up on adrenaline as they cobbled together a 35-minute > video called RIP WTO N30. By 2 pm the next day they were > selling the film, a choppy but intense sampling of the > heaviest day of WTO protests -- most of it recorded by Lewis > himself -- at five bucks each in the streets. From there, it > would make its way to news outlets throughout the world. > > Maybe media took their cue from Seattle Police Chief Norm > Stamper, who publicly blamed the property destruction on > Eugene anarchists just days before resigning, or from Eugene > Mayor Jim Torrey, who lamented to reporters that Eugene was > "the anarchist capital of the United States." > > Whatever the reason, it seemed that national media had made > their collective decision: Eugene anarchists were > responsible for vandalizing downtown Seattle, provoking > police to assault nonviolent protesters and paralyzing the > WTO convention. Reporters for 60 Minutes, Harper's and > Rolling Stone swooped on this small city, inviting the > notorious anarchists to explain their behavior at the Battle > of Seattle. > > And while a few loud-mouthed, hard-talking men stepped up to > the task -- most dominantly Tim Lewis, Tim Ream, John > Zerzan, Robin Terranova and Marshall Kirkpatrick -- many > others within the local eco-radical community rolled their > eyes. Hundreds of WTO protesters from Eugene were peaceful, > they noted, and people from all over the country had joined > the black bloc. Of the 570 protesters arrested at the WTO > protests, Seattle police identified only four from Eugene. > > "I don't think five or six Eugene hoodies went up there and > shut down the city of Seattle," Shadowalker said. "Media > attention after the WTO gave birth to what I call the > Anarchy Rock Star, and all these other people got tuned out." > > Those other people were the feeders and the feminists of the > movement, the planters of gardens, the militant vegans, the > artists and techno-geeks, animal lovers, labor advocates and > zine-writers. > > They had come together in the late '90s to oppose the > government, corporations and cops -- all the institutions > they saw destroying free spirits and wild places. And after > the WTO protests, they were finally getting international > attention for it. "Then it came down to what we wanted to do > with that," eco-radical Chris Calef later reflected by > email, "but it turned out we had very little agreement > amongst ourselves on the specifics." > > That discord manifested in internal debates about gender > roles within the movement, violence versus nonviolence, > anarchists versus green hippies and the typical dramas of a > cliquish community. "All the while we're dealing with police > informants and infiltrators and state oppression that served > to exacerbate the distrust," Calef added, "and basically > just pour gas on the fire." > > From the end of the Warner Creek forest blockade in 1996 to > the sentencing of Jeff "Free" Luers in June 2001, Heather > Coburn saw eco-radical women doing the work that was most > critical to the movement but drew the least media attention: > housing, feeding, educating and entertaining the growing > masses of activists. "During the heyday of anarchism, even > though it was the camo-clad men doing most of the talking, > almost all of those projects were being bottom-lined > logistically by women," she said. > > Coburn was among those unsung heroines. In 1998 she and two > others took on the lease for Ant Farm, one of several > communal pads where hundreds of scrappy activists crashed > over the next three years. She ran an all-women's show > called "Vaginal Discharge" on the pirate radio station Radio > Free Cascadia and co-organized the "Free Skool" classes that > spread activism skills throughout Whiteaker. As a volunteer > with Food Not Bombs, she scavenged surplus food from local > businesses and served it to hungry people in neighborhood > parks. In 1999 she and a friend dug a garden into Scobert > Park and launched an urban gardening movement called Food > Not Lawns. > > Another caretaker of the movement was Shelley Cater, a > friendly single mother then in her 30s who managed Out of > the Fog, an organic coffee house by the Amtrak station. > Cater invited Fall Creek forest defenders to hold meetings > in the café, opened her 5th Ave. home as a campaign > headquarters, shuttled donated food and supplies to the > aerial village and relieved tree-sitters between rotations. > The Fall Creek activists, mostly males under 25, started > calling her "Mom." > > A few stalwart women also hung up in the trees -- including > a woman called Warcry, a smart and fiery activist who'd come > to Oregon after sitting in the redwoods of California's > Headwaters Forest. She relished the Fall Creek activists' > fuck-y'all, flag-burning attitude, so different from the > peacenik vibe at Headwaters. "In Northern California you > couldn't burn an American flag," she said with a laugh. > "Right up the road in Eugene, it was kind of expected of you." > > But not all Fall Creek women felt safe in the forest. > According to an article in Earth First! Journal > ("Confronting Oppression, Aug.-Sept. 2001), men were doing > most of the cool engineering work -- hoisting platforms into > the trees, stringing rope bridges between the tree-sits, > teaching one another to use the climbing gear -- without > passing that knowledge onto their female counterparts. > Worse, some creepy dudes were allegedly harassing and > sexually assaulting women, but male activists weren't > willing to kick out offenders who had valuable skills. "We > became pessimistic and depressed with the situation," wrote > the article's anonymous authors. > > In early 2001 the women took a stand and asked four men to > leave Fall Creek, two of them for good. During a > "gender-bender" month, only women occupied the tree village, > teaching each other forest survival skills while men in town > organized funds, gathered donations and brought them food -- > albeit reluctantly. "The men were totally against that," > Cater said. > > In Eugene, the gender divide was only getting worse. One > woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of > retaliation -- we'll call her "S." -- became alarmed around > 2000 when an eco-anarchist allegedly commented that he would > rape a woman for the revolution. S. launched what she called > an anarcho-feminist counter-movement, criticizing and > publicly shunning the activists who she felt were fostering > abuse -- a list that started small, but widened to include > even well-known feminists such as Heather Coburn and Kari > Johnson. "There was a lack of analysis of white, male, > able-bodied, hetero privilege," S. said. "There's no way a > movement can sustain itself if it's not built from the > bottom up and if all of us haven't addressed our cultural > oppression." > > The anarcho-feminists' work did prompt some people within > the movement to make changes. Most media and activist groups > adopted anti-oppression policies, and the question of > privilege became one that every activist confronted. But not > everyone appreciated it -- least of all Tim Lewis, who was > perhaps the biggest target of the anti-patriarchy movement. > "There was a major attack on men by women who felt like men > had too much power in the community," he said. "Some men > left town because they were literally threatened with murder > or having their balls cut off." > > The turmoil fueled debates that blazed across a growing > number of home-grown independent media forums: on the > public-access TV show Cascadia Alive!, which aired weekly > from 1996 to 2004; on anarchist philosopher John Zerzan's > show, Radio Anarchy, which began on Radio Free Cascadia and > continues today on KWVA; in the pages of Earth First! > Journal, which was based in Eugene from 1993 to 2001, as > well as in Green Anarchy magazine; and in the films and > reports produced by Cascadia Media Collective, which Randy > Shadowalker launched in summer 2000. > > The media surge stoked more discontent from > behind-the-scenes activists who felt that the movement's > largely hard-edged spokespeople didn't accurately represent > them. Shadowalker saw a cliquish, badder-than-thou attitude > begin to dominate the eco-anarchist scene, alienating its > natural allies on the left -- people who sympathized with > the movement but lived within the mainstream. "When that > [alliance] was gone, the spell was broken," he said. "It > almost went poof." > > Other eco-anarchists saw liberals as unnecessary allies, > hopelessly trying to reform a political system whose very > existence they opposed. "People were tired of being told > what to do or how to act by these PC motherfuckers," Lewis said. > > Compounding the internal strife, federal investigations made > Eugene anarchists edgy, paranoid and suspicious of > infiltrators. An ongoing string of incendiary crimes in the > Pacific Northwest brought the FBI magnifying glass > ever-closer to Eugene, directing a hot beam of surveillance > onto the scene. > > On Dec. 25, 1999, arsonists placed gift-wrapped buckets of > fuel rigged with kitchen timers around the Monmouth, Ore. > offices of lumber company Boise Cascade, burning the place > to ashes. Days later the arsonists explained why in a > communiqué sent to ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh: "Boise > Cascade has been very naughty. After ravaging the forests of > the Pacific Northwest, Boise Cascade now looks toward the > virgin forests of Chile. Early Christmas morning, elves left > coal in Boise Cascade's stocking." > > Five days after the Boise arson, saboteurs toppled a BPA > tower near Bend. > > Activists report that police closed in on the scene -- > tailing them after demonstrations, snooping outside their > punk parties, snapping photos of them in the streets. Tim > Ream, convinced that the feds were preparing to raid his > house, nailed legal statutes pertaining to searches on his > front door. "What does it mean to hang out with your lover > in your house when you feel like you're being bugged?" he > asked. "It's a weird space to live in." > > Lacey Phillabaum sat somberly in front of a bed of poppies > in Whiteaker, her face darkened by night shadows, and > justified the black bloc's behavior at the Battle of > Seattle. "There's nothing in the world like running with a > group of 200 people all wearing black," she said, blue eyes > fixed on a point beyond Tim Lewis' camera, "and realizing > each of you is anonymous, each of you can liberate your > desires, each of you can make a difference right there." > > It was mid-June 2000, just days before the premiere of > Lewis' documentary about the combustible trinity: Eugene, > anarchy and the WTO -- then called Smash!; now titled > Breaking the Spell. Anarcho-feminists had been calling Lewis > an attention-hogging sexist for months, and now he figured > he better get a woman to host his film. Phillabaum, an > articulate and bold activist who had been an EF!J editor > from 1996-1999, was an obvious choice. She would later > regret agreeing to it. > > It had been a heavy couple of months. Phillabaum and others, > under the banner Eugene Active Existence, had organized the > Seven Weeks Revolt!, a roster of community education, street > theater and resistance rallies that actually spanned about > eight weeks. It kicked off around April 24, when more than > 100 people gathered in front of the Lane County Jail to hold > a candlelight vigil for jailed Philadephia journalist and > convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Police alleged that > protesters blocked traffic, ignored orders to disperse and, > in one instance, kicked a burning can at them. Protesters, > in turn, accused the cops of showing up in excessive > "robo-gear," intimidating and assaulting them. Police fired > rubber bullets at one demonstrator and arrested eight. > > Eugene anarchists became the boogeymen of the Northwest, > repeatedly blamed for police overreactions at protests. When > a group of Eugene radicals joined more than 300 > demonstrators in Portland during a May Day march, some 100 > cops fired beanbag shots and slammed horses and ATVs into > the mass, injuring at least 20 people. Portland's police > chief blamed Eugene anarchists for the excessive police > presence, just as cops in Tacoma, Wash., cited rumors of > Eugene anarchist mischief when explaining why 350 cops > showed up at a canceled steelworkers' union protest in March. > > In the wee hours of June 16, 2000, activists Jeff "Free" > Luers and Craig "Critter" Marshall drove from a northwest > Eugene warehouse to the Joe Romania Chevrolet dealership on > Franklin Boulevard, where they set fire to three pickup > trucks in protest of gas-guzzling culture. After they drove > away, Springfield police pulled them over for a busted > headlight at the request of undercover Eugene police who had > been following the pair. That day, Eugene police raided the > warehouse where Luers lived and Chris Calef was leaseholder. > > The next night, after Lewis' documentary Smash! premiered on > the UO campus, masked activists in black marched toward the > Lane County jail to rally for Luers and Marshall. Police > again showed up in riot gear, arresting about 40 protesters > who linked arms in resistance. Police broke them up with > pain holds and pepper spray; one officer allegedly hit a > professional videographer in the head with a flashlight. > > The following day marked the one-year anniversary of the > June 18, 1999 protest, and activists held another protest > rally downtown. Police arrested 37 demonstrators, and an > officer struck a KLCC reporter with a baton on the head, the > blow landing on her headphone band. > > In August 2000, the Eugene police released a report > absolving themselves of all wrongdoing during the > Seven-Weeks Revolt! protests. > > A spate of federal laws stiffened the penalties for > eco-sabotage during those volatile years. As the FBI's > counter-terrorism budget grew, Joint Terrorism Task Forces > increasingly looped local cops into the surveillance of > radical environmentalists. The May 1999 Juvenile Justice > Bill made it a federal crime to share information on > bomb-making and created a central database called the > "Animal Terrorism and Ecoterrorism Incident Clearinghouse." > In March 2001 the Oregon House passed two bills expanding > the definition of organized crime to include sabotage > against animal enterprises and the timber industry, > punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Warcry noted these > developments in an article in the Earth First! Journal ("The > Criminalization of Ecology," Aug.-Sept. 2001). > > Still, eco-sabotage burned hotter across the Pacific > Northwest. In September 2000 arsonists singed the EPD's West > University Public Safety Station, and four months later the > Superior Lumber offices in Glendale, Ore., burned to the > ground. On March 30, just as Luers was about to go to trial > -- "Critter" Marshall had already pleaded guilty and > received five and a half years -- eco-anarchists attacked > Joe Romania Chevrolet a second time, damaging more than 30 > SUVs. ELF claimed responsibility in a March 31 communiqué, > noting that although Luers and Marshall had been charged > with torching the same lot a year earlier, "The > techno-industrial state . . . cannot jail the spirit of > those who know another world is possible." > > Less than two months later came the double whammy, the > biggest arson the anarchists had seen since the 1998 blaze > at the Vail Mountain ski resort. On May 21, 2001 activists > burned an office and 13 trucks at Jefferson Poplar Farm in > Clatskanie, Ore. On the same day, they torched the office of > a biochemist who was doing research on genetically > engineered poplar trees at the University of Washington. ELF > claimed responsibility in a June 1 communiqué, linking the > two arsons and denouncing GE tree research. > > On June 11, 2001, Judge Lyle Velure sentenced Luers to 22 > years and eight months in Oregon State Penitentiary for > arson at the Romania dealership and attempted arson at Tyree > Oil Inc. in Whiteaker -- a penalty stiffer than that handed > to some rapists and murderers. More than a slap on the wrist > or even a rap on the knuckles, it was as if Velure had > chopped off the hand of Eugene's eco-anarchist community. > > More blows followed in quick succession: In July 2001, > Italian military police shot and killed a masked protester > at the G8 trade summit in Genoa. Then came the Sept. 11 > attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, followed > by the free-speech-chilling PATRIOT Act. Eugene anarchists > would help light one more arson in mid-October, burning down > a hay barn and releasing 200 horses and burros from the BLM > Wild Horse Facility in northeast California. > > Eugene's eco-radicals may have been aware of the arsons, and > some even impressed, but few say they suspected that the > saboteurs were members of their own community. "Half of the > arsonists were good friends of mine at one point or another > while the actions were going on," Heather Coburn said, "and > I had no idea." > > She still has a hard time accepting that that one of her own > housemates was involved in just about all of the sabotage. > > It wasn't just the sabotage crimes and their consequences > that squelched eco-anarchy in Eugene. Most involved > activists agree that by mid-2001, Eugene's eco-anarchist > scene had imploded on its own. > > One exception was the Fall Creek activists, who hung tough > in the trees even after an environmentalist lawsuit forced > the Forest Service to dramatically reduce the size of the > planned logging in order to protect the red tree vole. They > hung on until Zip-O-Log Mills finally gave up its plans to > log the remaining 24 acres. In 2003 they finally came down > from the tree village, having spared 96 acres of forest from > chainsaws since "Free" Luers made the first tree-sit in 1998. > > Meanwhile, Eugene's eco-radicals moved on to other > endeavors. Some moved away and kept up their activism > elsewhere. Some stayed and pushed forward with above-ground > environmental projects based out of Eugene. A few ended up > in prison; still others moved on to college, families, > mortgages, 9-to-5s. And although the movement's dissipation > saddened some activists, it also sparked new endeavors. "For > me, the most radical things we did were in the process of > falling apart and then getting back together as > individuals," Coburn said. > > But four years after the movement deflated, it would return > to haunt everyone involved -- dragging 10 activists who > thought they'd moved on with their lives before federal > courts in Eugene. The feds hadn't closed the books on the > eco-anarchists yet. > > Check back on Dec. 7 for Part IV: The Bust. > > ***** > > http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/11/22/letters.html > > HISTORICAL REALITY > > I am a bit surprised to be called a vigilante in EW ("Flames > of Dissent II," 11/9), and would like to make a comment. > > Just a few years prior to the history told in Kera Abraham's > article, I had been nearly killed twice during street > rioting in Kathmandu while covering the revolution as a > photojournalist for a European news agency. That revolution > brought down one of the world's last monarchs, and was > bloody and dangerous. People standing next to me on the > street were shot dead, bone and brains disgorged. To be > confronted in my own neighborhood in Eugene not long after > by radical politicos shouting intimidating bullshit slogans, > who were not honest and who were targeting the innocent for > brutality, was for me like being heckled by bantams. What > most surprised me was that many of my neighbors were afraid > and confused, yet of good heart and right intent. > > Kera got the timeline slightly confused, understandably so > for a story so complex. It was first the Scobert Park > incident, in which the citizenry went through an intense and > proper public debate about how to end the debauch taking > place there, that showed the community that the newly > arrived rads were bent on hijacking public process, not on > joining and participating. It was, for them, about > cop-baiting, and Whiteaker was their chosen bait. > > For Whiteaker residents, many of whom intentionally live > here because of our diversity, radical ideologies are > welcome and the choir wishes to be preached to. But as with > other radical movements we've seen, the Charlie Mansonoids > eventually arrive, the poison Kool-Aid is served and the > choir sings off-key. Sadly, the beautiful green tones of the > movement morphed into jagged black dissonance. When one of > the black-shirts fired a rifle through the front door of the > Red Barn one night as his way of counting coup against > life's cruel injustices, my gloves flew off. > > There was significant injury done to the community by both > the anarchists and the heroin/meth epidemic during this > time. Whiteaker, like the Balkans, has been a crossroads and > a dumping ground for other jurisdictions' social problems > and political failures. A very high percentage of all social > services for the region are located in Whiteaker, as are the > cheapest high-density apartments, the state's parolees and > the 400-bed Mission just next to the railyard. People get > tired of a stacked deck, and eventually there is a social > disaster and a public reaction. Complicate this scenario > with an unresponsive city government and a new influx of > angry outsiders with their own agenda, and a lot of > hostility can be generated. > > In our case the citizens eventually won but paid a high > price, and I suppose I shouldn't mind being called names > over it even at this late date, as long as there is some > appreciation for the historical reality that if no one ever > has the courage to stand up and shout bullshit to fascist > posturing, even while the choir sings a different tune, > mayhem and malevolence in the guise of liberty and justice > will again take the stage. We deserve a happier script. > > Dennis Ramsey, Eugene > > POLITICAL CONTEXT > > Kudos to Kera Abraham for her brave attempt to cover the > eco-radical movement in Eugene! It's a tough issue to write > about, and she's giving it a heck of a good shot. > > I do feel the need to clarify my quote in the second article > ("Flames of Dissent II," 11/9): "If it's violence and mayhem > [that bring attention to the issues], then fuck it". The > context of that was that the mainstream media seem unable to > report on anything but violence and mayhem. To penetrate the > wall of corporate propaganda, people who have something to > say often have to go to the streets in order to say it. > > Something else that could have been stressed more in the > article is the political context in which these protests > occurred. In 1999 we didn't have the Bushes to blame for the > state of the world, and we did not have the hope of electing > a Democrat who would make things better. We had a Democrat > in power, and what did we get from it? We got the Salvage > Rider, outlawing any form of legal challenge to many old > growth timber sales. We had the president's unmitigated > support for neoliberal trade policies that were effectively > enslaving and even killing farmers and workers, from Nigeria > to Korea to the maquiladoras in Mexico. Even with a Democrat > in power, our country still refused to sign the Kyoto > Protocol or take active steps toward nuclear disarmament. > > These are not abstract issues that a rational, responsible > person can simply ignore or timidly debate. They were, and > still are, life and death issues that must be confronted and > resolved, by whatever means possible. > > Chris Calef, Eugene > > FIGHT THE POWER > > Michael "Ike" Terrance (11/16) is "extremely appalled" by > Kera Abraham's "history of eco-terrorism in Eugene." His > letter is patronizing, self-righteous and all too typical. > So many know-nothing know-it-all liberals feel the need to > denounce ELF at every opportunity, declaring their loyalty > to "law and order" and the status quo instead of the > community and the natural world. > > Memo to Ike: Social change is made by people willing to get > their hands dirty. Power concedes nothing without a fight, > never has, never will. No amount of tofu eating and ass > kissing by the likes of you will change this historical > fact. Expecting big business and government to do anything > other than carry on trashing the planet, invading countries, > looting resources and exploiting people is fatally naïve. > > That does not make the ELF beyond criticism. Their tactics > are often flawed, and illegal clandestine groups are no > substitute for a social/environmental mass movement. But > comparing these people to al-Qaeda and giving their captives > harsher punishment than right-wing vigilantes who target > minorities or sexual predators who target children is > inexcusable. > > I applaud Kera Abraham for her background series on > anarchism and environmentalism in Eugene. Contrary to what > Ike says, many people are interested in this piece of our > history. There are many lessons to be drawn from the experience. > > ***** > > -- > Dan Clore > > Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_ > http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro > Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: > http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/ > News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo > > "It's a political statement -- or, rather, an > *anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!" > -- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in > _Detective Comics_ #608
PLease check out my online store, is plain now, but more gears will be added! thanks so much, sorry for bothering!
Dan Clore
2006-12-12 12:45:42 EST
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
*****
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/12/07/news1.html [photos omitted] Flames of Dissent The local spark that ignited an eco-sabotage boom -- and bust BY KERA ABRAHAM PT. IV: THE BUST
The dog's barking punctuated a steady bang bang bang on the front door. It was 7 am, and Heather Coburn was not in the mood for this. She swung open the door to encounter dark-suited federal agents, who stoically informed her that they wanted to talk to her about her housemate, Jake Ferguson. When she refused, they flashed a search warrant and said they were going to tow her truck.
It was spring 2001, a peak time in Eugene's eco-radical scene. The vandalism at the fall 1999 WTO protests, summarily blamed on "Eugene anarchists," and the rowdy anti-establishment protests that followed -- confrontations between black-clad anarchists and cops, broadcast by a pulse of locally based radical green media -- had catapulted this damp little city to international infamy. Some of the more extreme activists were calling for revolution against "Earth-raping" corporations and the government by any means necessary, and a surge of arsons claimed by the Earth and Animal Liberation Fronts told the world that they were serious.
The obsessively secretive eco-saboteurs had eluded federal agents for years, but the mystery of Coburn's truck presented a crack in the case. Over the next five years, through grand jury subpoenas, informants and the threat of life sentences, federal agents would wrestle that crack ever-wider. Eventually 12 environmentalists would plead guilty to conspiracy and arson, their faces, for so long masked, exposed to the world in the unforgiving grays of newspaper ink.
About a week before her FBI wake-up call, Coburn had discovered that her truck was missing from its usual spot outside her North Grand Street house. She'd had a nasty fight with Ferguson the night before, accusing him of pitting his multiple lovers against one another. "He was hostile and belligerent and trashed my house and moved out," she said. "I woke up the next morning and my car was gone."
Assuming Ferguson had ganked her truck, Coburn called the police and reported the truck stolen. By the time an EPD officer arrived, she had found her truck parked a block away and told him to forget about it. That same day, upon advice from her friends, she filed a restraining order against Ferguson. What she didn't realize was that on the night before, eco-radicals had torched more than 30 SUVs at Romania Chevrolet, the same dealership that Jeff "Free" Luers and Craig "Critter" Marshall had burned the year before. That morning also happened to mark the start of Luers' trial.
Some of Coburn's friends were furious with her for going to the cops, suspicious that she'd told them too much. One woman, an activist called Sparrow, went to the police station and asked for both the report and the restraining order. According to statements made by retired EPD Chief Thad Buchanan to Rolling Stone, Sparrow's inquiry helped police connect Coburn's truck to Ferguson, and Ferguson to the arsons. Buchanan did not return EW's calls.
When Coburn and her boyfriend, Tobias Policha, went to pick up the truck in the Gateway Mall area, FBI agents handed them both grand jury subpoenas. Coburn didn't like the idea of grand juries, which force people to testify in secret proceedings without a lawyer in order to indict a suspect. But she had just gotten a big grant from the city to do permaculture projects in Whiteaker, and she knew that if she refused to testify she could end up incarcerated for contempt. She wasn't willing to make that sacrifice.
The grand jury testimony wasn't so bad, or even so revealing, Coburn said. But many of her friends -- who hated nothing so much as law enforcement -- would never forgive her for it. "I felt really persecuted by the community," she said. "People I don't even know labeled me a snitch because I wouldn't go to jail rather than go to the grand jury."
In an effort to be open, Coburn went to the Shamrock House Infoshop and offered Tim Lewis, an eco-anarchist filmmaker, a "play-by-play" of her grand jury experience. She told him that there had been questions about Ferguson, SUVs and "relationships with certain people." But she really didn't think anything would come of it. Sure, her friends were radicals, and they could act stupid at times -- but not so stupid as to commit arson, she figured.
She was wrong.
More subpoenas followed Coburn and Policha's. Ferguson was ordered to appear before the grand jury, but he consulted with a court-appointed lawyer and skipped out to New Orleans for a few months. Another activist, Carla Martinez, was served a subpoena in fall 2001 and announced that she would not testify. About three years later, the grand jury re-subpoenaed Martinez -- and this time she complied.
Around May 2004, FBI Special Agent John Ferreira showed up at the home of eco-activist Jennifer Woodruff, who has a son with Ferguson, and served her a grand jury subpoena. "'Arson's wrong and we think you can help us,'" she remembers him saying. Woodruff, then 31 years old, with tattoos on her hands and long, dark hair, told Ferreira that she wouldn't testify.
But internally she was scared of jail, of being taken away from her son. When the feds offered to interview her and two other activist women with their lawyers present, rather than alone before the grand jury, Woodruff initially agreed. Still, a sense of impending betrayal kept her awake at night, and on the day she was scheduled to testify she told her lawyer she'd changed her mind. I can't give in to those bastards, she thought.
She remembers federal prosecutor Kirk Engdall getting upset and threatening to have her jailed for contempt. "I never heard from them again," she said.
But her son's dad, Jake Ferguson, did. By 2003 he was strung out on heroin, playing heavy metal guitar (his bands: Eat Shit Fuckface and Caricature of Hate) and living in Saginaw with his girlfriend, also an addict. The feds were on to him.
Ferguson wouldn't speak with EW, but his court-appointed lawyer, Ed Spinney, offered this version of events: The arsonists who torched the Romania lot in 2001 used Ferguson's truck without his permission, implicating him in a crime he didn't commit. "He was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury but instead spoke voluntarily to the government and told them that he had nothing to do with it," Spinney wrote by email. "For the next couple of years he was almost constantly under the surveillance of the government."
In 2003, feds contacted Ferguson again and told him that people within the community had linked him to the Romania fire and other arsons. And that, ostensibly, is when Ferguson agreed to cooperate. Court records indicate that by spring 2004, Ferguson was wearing a hidden recording device in an effort to bait other saboteurs, his friends, into incriminating themselves.
The terms of the government's deal with Ferguson are confidential, Spinney said. Federal prosecutors have declined to comment, and Eugene police involved in the investigation have been barred from discussing it with the press. Although the Rolling Stone article suggests that Ferguson may receive $50,000 and a get-out-of-jail-free card for his cooperation, Spinney denies that Ferguson has received either financial compensation or total immunity from the government (yet). But the fact remains that Ferguson, who has admitted to at least 15 acts of sabotage -- more than any of the defendants now before the courts -- has not been indicted.
According to the Rolling Stone article, Ferguson wore the hidden recorder to an annual Earth First! gathering, to the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the UO, and to meetings with six of his partners in crime, by then scattered across the country. In December 2005 the feds swooped in for the bust, arresting William Rodgers, Kevin Tubbs, Stanislas Meyerhoff, Chelsea Gerlach, Kendall Tankersley and Daniel McGowan. They also jailed Gerlach's Canadian boyfriend, Darren Thurston, on immigration charges; he would later be indicted for arson.
In January 2006 they arrested southern Oregon residents Suzanne Savoie and Jonathan Paul; in February and March, Joyanna Zacher, Nathan Block and Briana Waters, all from Olympia, Wash. By April they had also indicted Josephine Sunshine Overaker, Rebecca Rubin, Joseph Dibee and Justin Solondz, who are still at large. At some point during the sweep Spokane natives Jennifer Kolar and Lacey Phillabaum came forward to cooperate, according to the FBI.
Federal prosecutors minced no words, calling the defendants "eco-terrorists" and threatening them with staggering, post-9/11-style sentences. Faced with that terrible decision -- rat out your friends or sit in jail until you die -- each defendant, it seems, reacted differently. Meyerhoff reportedly started cooperating immediately; Tubbs, Savoie, Gerlach, Thurston and Tankersley had made the same decision by the time they pleaded guilty in July. So did Kolar and Phillabaum, who pleaded guilty in October. While "snitch" provisions have not been made public, virtually all such deals require cooperating defendants to name names, according to Civil Liberties Defense Center attorney Lauren Regan, who lived with Phillabaum for a year.
Four defendants before the federal court in Oregon -- McGowan, Paul, Block and Zacher -- pleaded not guilty. On behalf of all four, the team of defense attorneys filed discovery motions asking the feds to hand over any information that had been obtained through National Security Administration surveillance or warrantless wiretaps, which a judge had recently ruled illegal.
The federal prosecutors stalled, pushing back their court-ordered deadline three times while maintaining that no illegal surveillance had occurred. But eventually they struck a plea deal with the defendants: In exchange for withdrawing the discovery motion and confessing to their own crimes, all four defendants would get dramatically reduced sentences and would not have to implicate anyone else. They took the deal, pleading guilty in November.
Only one defendant, Briana Waters, continues to plead not guilty before the federal court in Washington. Her attorney is pursuing a discovery motion similar to that filed by the Oregon defense team.
Hanging like a pall over the community is the knowledge that Rodgers had made an entirely different decision. Alone in his jail cell in Flagstaff, Ariz., in December 2005, he had scrawled two notes, one bemoaning his betrayal, and the other addressed to his friends and family. "I chose to fight on the side of the bears, mountain lions, skunks, bats, saguaros, cliff roses and all things wild," he wrote. "I am just the most recent casualty in this war. But tonight I have made a jailbreak -- I am returning home, to the Earth, the place of my origins." With that, he placed a plastic bag over his head and suffocated. Reportedly, he died with his right fist clenched in the Earth First! gesture of defiance.
It may have signaled a call to action -- or the death of a movement.
Check back on Dec. 21 for Part V: The Aftermath.
GRAND STAND
In March 2006, an FBI agent and Eugene policeman surprised nursing student Jeff Hogg by his car in the parking lot of LCC. "'You're not in trouble or anything; we just want you to testify against the arsonists,'" he remembers them saying. "I was pretty freaked out, but I wasn't surprised they wanted to talk to me."
Hogg, an Earth First!er who had been active with the local scene from the 1995 Warner Creek blockade to the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, speculated that his grand jury subpoena may have had something to do with his alleged participation in "Book Club" meetings, which prosecutors describe as secret, conspiratorial eco-radical gatherings that took place in four cities, including Eugene, around 2000-2001. And, of course, his ex-girlfriend was former Earth First! Journal co-editor Lacey Phillabaum, who was in a relationship with hard-talking radical Stan Meyerhoff. Both Phillabaum and Meyerhoff, by then, had been fingered in the arsons and were apparently cooperating with the feds.
But Hogg wouldn't testify, and in May 2006 he was incarcerated for contempt, leaving his studies on hold and his partner, Cecilia Story, to pay the mortgage on their home. "It would be different if I'd been somebody who stole a car or something and knew my charges," he told EW through the Plexiglas at Josephine County Jail. "For me, it's a bunch of unknowns."
He would remain in jail without charge, refusing to cooperate with the grand jury, until November. During those six months on the inside his life had been thrown off-track, his studies put on hold, his parents upset with him for missing his grandfather's funeral. But in eco-radical circles, media-shy Hogg became a hero.
The Actions
Oct. 28, 1996: Attempted arson of USFS's Detroit Ranger District station in Willamette National Forest; arson of USFS vehicle in parking lot. "Earth Liberation Front" (ELF) spray-painted on the side of the building. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker
October 30, 1996: Arson of USFS's Oakridge Ranger District station in WNF, Ore. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Tubbs
July 21, 1997: Arson at Cavel West horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, Ore. Communiqué attributed arson to Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and "Equine and Zebra Liberation Front." LINKED TO: Ferguson, Tubbs, Dibee, Paul, Kolar
Nov. 30, 1997: Arson at BLM Wild Horse and Burro Facility in Burns, Ore.; about 400 horses and burros freed. ELF/ALF claimed arson via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Tubbs, Rubin, Rodgers
June 21, 1998: Arson at the USDA's Animal, Plant and Health Inspection Service in Olympia, Wash. Claimed by ELF/ALF via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker*, Tubbs, Rodgers, Dibee.
September 1998: Preparations for arson at BLM Wild Horse facility in Rock Springs, Wyo. Suspects heard on scanner that police were coming and buried materials. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Tubbs, Rubin, Rodgers
Oct. 4, 1998: Attempted arson at Wray Gun Club, Wray, Colo. LINKED TO: Kolar
Oct. 11, 1998: Attempted arson at BLM Wild Horse Holding Facility in Rock Springs, Wyo; 40-100 wild horses freed. ALF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Tubbs, Rubin, Rodgers, Meyerhoff, Gerlach
Oct. 19, 1998: Arson at the Vail Mountain ski resort in Vail, Colo. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Tubbs, Meyerhoff, Rubin, Gerlach, Rodgers
Dec. 22, 1998: Attempted arson at U.S. Forest Industries headquarters in Medford. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Tankersley, Tubbs, Rubin
Dec. 27, 1998: Arson at U.S. Forest Industries headquarters in Medford. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Tankersley
May 9, 1999: Arson at Childers Meat Company in Eugene. ALF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Tubbs, Meyerhoff, Gerlach and "others"
Dec. 25, 1999: Arson at Boise Cascade logging company regional headquarters in Monmouth, Ore. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Meyerhoff, Gerlach
Dec. 30, 1999: BPA high-tension line toppled near Bend. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Overaker, Meyerhoff, Gerlach
Sept. 6, 2000: Arson at EPD West University Public Safety Station in Eugene. LINKED TO: Meyerhoff, Gerlach, Tubbs
Jan. 2, 2001: Arson at Superior Lumber offices in Glendale, Ore. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Ferguson, Meyerhoff, Tubbs, McGowan, Savoie
March 30, 2001: Arson at Joe Romania Chevrolet dealership in Eugene. Communiqué sent to ELF press office did not explicitly attribute the action to ELF or ALF. LINKED TO: Meyerhoff, Tubbs, Block, Zacher, Rodgers
May 21, 2001: Arson at Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Meyerhoff, McGowan, Savoie, Block, Zacher, Ferguson*, Gerlach*, Tubbs*, Rodgers*
May 21, 2001: Arson at the University of Washington's Urban Horticulture Center in Seattle. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Meyerhoff, Gerlach, Rodgers, Waters, Kolar, Phillabaum, Solondz
Oct. 15, 2001: Arson at BLM wild horse and burro corrals in Litchfield, Calif.; 200 horses and burros freed. ELF claimed responsibility via communiqué. LINKED TO: Dibee, Rubin, Thurston, Solondz, Meyerhoff, Tubbs, Gerlach, Rodgers
*Implicated in preparations for arson, not arson itself
Source: Federal prosecutors' indictments and information. Actions that have been confessed to in court but have not resulted in indictments are not included here.
The Accused
Jake Ferguson Age: 34
Bio: Came to Eugene around 1994 with then-girlfriend; son born in 1995. Core activist at Warner Creek blockade. Lived in Eugene area on an off into the present. Dated* defendant Overaker around 1996 and Tankersley around late 1998. Recently studied diesel mechanics at LCC.
Legal status: Unindicted informant; implicated in 15 actions
* Note: The term "dated" is used loosely throughout this piece and indicates a spectrum of relationships: friends with benefits, polyamorous affairs, long-term monogamous partnerships. We note only known relationships among the accused and subpoenaed.
Stanislas Meyerhoff aka "Country Boy" Age: 29
Bio: Graduated from South Eugene High School in 1995. Dated defendant Gerlach from 1994–2000, and Phillabaum from 2001 until recently. Around 2001 moved to Bend, and about four years later moved to Charlottesville, Va. FBI agents arrested him in December 2005 at Piedmont Community College, where he studied engineering.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to eight actions, spanning 1998-2001, in July and September 2006. Recommended sentence: 15 years
Chelsea Gerlach aka "Country Girl" Age: 29
Bio: Eco-activist from age 15; graduated from South Eugene High School in 1995. Dated defendant Meyerhoff from 1994-2000, and later Thurston. Did outreach for the Warner Creek campaign. Studied environmental issues at Evergreen State College and LCC. At time of arrest in late 2005, was a house DJ living in Portland.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to six actions, spanning 1998-2001, in July and September 2006. Recommended sentence: 10 years
Sarah Kendall Tankersley Harvey Age: 29
Bio: Moved to Eugene from Ohio in fall 1995 to study history at the UO. Around 1997, became involved with the campus Survival Center. That spring, with Cascadia Forest Defenders, perched atop a metal tripod on the road into Hull-Oakes Lumber mill; peacefully confronted police at June 1 protest against tree cutting in downtown Eugene. In 1998 volunteered with Food Not Bombs; briefly dated informant Ferguson. Left Eugene around 1999, attended Humboldt State and graduated with molecular biology degree in 2004. Arrested in Flagstaff, Ariz., where she was working in support of families with disabled children, in December 2005.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to two 1998 arsons in July 2006. Recommended sentence: more than four years
Darren Thurston aka "Goat" Age: 36
Bio: Canadian animal rights activist with two prior eco-sabotage convictions; served almost two years in prison in the early 1990s. Arrested with then-girlfriend Gerlach in Tacoma, Wash., on Dec. 7, 2005, on immigration charges; later indicted for arson.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to participation in one 2001 arson on July 20, 2006. Recommended sentence: more than three years
Suzanne Savoie aka "India" Age: 29
Bio: Southern Oregon-based eco-activist formerly involved in forest defense campaigns in the Siskiyou Mountains and Applegate watershed. Briefly dated defendant McGowan. Later worked in a home for the developmentally disabled; turned self in to FBI agents in mid-January 2006.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to two 2001 arsons on July 21, 2006. Recommended sentence: More than five years
Kevin Tubbs aka "The Dog" Age: 37
Eugene connection: Animal rights activist from age 22; studied fine arts and philosophy at the University of Nebraska. Moved to Eugene with then-girlfriend around 1995. Volunteered at Earth First! Journal; briefly lived in a trailer behind the journal's Glenwood-area office. Core activist at the Warner Creek blockade. Arrested on Dec. 7, 2005 at his Springfield home, where he lived with his fiancé, dogs and cats.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to eight actions, spanning 1996-2001, in July 2006. Recommended sentence: more than 14 years
Briana Waters Age: 31
Bio: Grew up in Lansdale, Penn., and Berkeley, Calif; later lived in Olympia, Wash. Produced and directed Watch, a documentary on a 1999 forest defense campaign in southwest Washington. Graduated from Evergreen State College in 1999. At the time of arrest in March 2006, was working as a violin teacher, married, and had a baby daughter.
Legal status: Pleaded not guilty to UW arson; trial scheduled for May 2007
Joseph Dibee Age: 39
Bio: Lived in Seattle; worked at family sewing company, and later as a technician for Microsoft. Dated defendant Kolar. Reportedly "communications" specialist during Warner Creek blockade and banner-maker for other environmental actions. Indicted in January 2006 for alleged participation in one 2001 arson and one 1998 arson.
Legal status: Fugitive
Jonathan Paul Age: 40
Eugene connection: Grew up in the Eastern U.S.; animal rights activist. In early 1990s, jailed for almost six months for refusing to testify to federal grand jury. Dated defendant Kolar; later engaged in legal skirmish with indictee Dibee over rights to anti-whaling nonprofit, Sea Defense Alliance. In 1998 spoke at the National Animal Rights Conference at the UO, suggesting that the ALF and ELF movements be united. Arrested in southern Oregon, where he worked as a hotel employee and volunteer firefighter, in mid-January 2006.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to one 1997 arson on Nov. 9, 2006. Recommended sentence: five years
Nathan Block aka "Exile" Age: 25
Bio: Worked as a carpenter and lived with defendant Zacher outside Olympia, Wash. Arrested in February 2006; detectives allegedly seized 44 pounds of pot from his and Zacher's rented house.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to two 2001 arsons on Nov. 9, 2006. Recommended sentence: eight years
Lacey Phillabaum Age: 31
Bio: Grew up in Spokane, Wash.; high school debater. Came to Eugene to study art history at the UO around 1993. Worked at campus Survival Center and radical student newspaper The Insurgent. Supported the Warner Creek blockade; co-editor of Earth First! Journal from 1996-1999. Spoke at spring 2001 environmental law conference panel: "Does Property Damage Have a Place in Mass Protest?" Appeared in Tim Lewis films Pickaxe, Breaking the Spell and others. Dated subpoenaed activist Jeff Hogg from about 1996-2000 and defendant Meyerhoff from about 2001 until recently. Beginning around 2001, worked as editor of In Good Tilth newsletter, freelanced for Bend altweekly The Source. In 2005 moved to Charlottesville, Va., to take reporting position at C-Ville Weekly. Turned herself in to federal agents sometime around early 2006.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to one 2001 arson on Oct. 4, 2006. Recommended sentence: three to five years
Daniel McGowan aka "Sorrell" Age: 32
Bio: Grew up in Queens, NY; earned degree in business administration and Asian studies from University of Buffalo in 1996. Participated in 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. Lived in Eugene from March 2000-January 2002; was short-term editor for Earth First! Journal, contributor to Green Anarchy magazine, volunteer for Shamrock House Infoshop and campaigner to support Jeff "Free" Luers. Briefly dated defendant Savoie; washed dishes at Morning Glory restaurant. Returned to New York in 2002, studied acupuncture, organized protests against the Republican National Convention and worked for WomensLaw.org. Arrested in New York City in December 2005; married in May 2006.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to two 2001 arsons on Nov. 9, 2006. Recommended sentence: eight years
Joyanna Zacher aka "Sheba" Age: 28
Bio: Involved in 1999 protests against the WTO in Seattle. Worked as a nanny and lived with defendant Block outside Olympia, Wash. Arrested in February 2006.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to two 2001 arsons on Nov. 9, 2006. Recommended sentence: eight years
Jennifer Kolar aka "Diver" Age: 33
Bio: Grew up in Spokane, Wash.; raced sailboats. Dated defendant Jonathan Paul, and later fugitive Joseph Dibee. Pursued doctorate degree at the University of Colorado. Turned self in to federal agents in Washington sometime around early 2006.
Legal status: Pleaded guilty to a 1998 arson and a 2001 arson on Oct. 4, 2006. Recommendedsentence: five to seven years
Rebecca Rubin Age: 33
Bio: Canadian scientist; studied cranes. Indicted in January 2006 for alleged participation in six actions, 1997-2001.
Bio: May have lived in Eugene in mid-1990s. Dated informant Ferguson around fall 1996. Reportedly participated in a number of forest defense actions. Indicted in January 2006 for alleged participation in nine actions, 1996-1999.
Legal status: Fugitive
Justin Solondz Age: 27
Bio: Born in New Jersey; part-time carpentry worker. Indicted in spring 2006 for alleged participation in two 2001 arsons.
Legal status: Fugitive
William Rodgers aka "Avalon" Age: 40 at death
Bio: Arizona-based eco-activist. In 1996, briefly joined the Warner Creek blockade. Allegedly co-authored a 2001 paper with Meyerhoff on how to build time-delayed incendiary devices. Before his arrest in December 2005, was living in Prescott, Ariz., with his then-girlfriend and running an activist bookstore, The Catalyst Infoshop. A member of the Arizona Indymedia collective, he apparently committed suicide by pulling a plastic bag over his head in a Flagstaff, Ariz., jail cell on Dec. 22, 2005, while awaiting extradition to Washington state.
I've never been so excited to read the Weekly. Don't get me wrong, I always peruse it, but it's not my biggest priority. However, this "Flames of Dissent" piece has me pumped -- so much so that here I am writing a letter to EW for the first time though I've certainly got other things that need to get done.
Kera Abraham is indeed a brave woman, taking on a very difficult topic and writing it very well. I'm not concerned if she got all the facts straight (every piece of reporting is ultimately hearsay and usually ends up being a little misconstrued anyway), but it does seem like she did do her research and tried her damn best. Furthermore, it comes as no surprise to me that this same woman wrote the well-balanced piece on Critical Mass in EW ("Spokes People," 8/10/06). I think you got a keeper, EW.
Today, after a wonderful Thanksgiving playing in the snowy forests that we are so blessed with (often with thanks due to said so-called "eco-terrorists"), I came back to town and settled down to the latest installment. Looking at the letters and the strong convictions expressed by Dennis Ramsey, Chris Calef and Steven Glider shows that we really have something to be thankful for regarding this whole situation. It was clearly an important part of Eugene (and Pacific Northwest) history and one which has left an indelible mark.
One thing that has made me love Eugene of all places is the fact that many of these and other important, relevant, "life and death issues" are so actively discussed by the community at large. Even the status quo here are better informed, free(er) thinkers than where I'm from, back on the other side of the Mississippi. We need to continue pushing and fighting for whatever we believe in, experimenting and learning as we go how to push and fight better.
Keep on fighting the good fight and be thankful for it.
Walter Lapchynski, Eugene
BE THE ONE
Thanks to Kera Abraham for her historical perspective, "Flames of Dissent." "What is said by great employers of labor against agitators is unquestionably true. Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation" (Oscar Wilde, 1891).
Lacey Phillabaum's defense of "the black bloc" seems reasonable to me. PC liberals complain about the mainstream media's focus on these radical groups, but being PC, they fall in line with government actions that disallow anything that isn't PC dissent. We don't all agree on the methods used, but most of us agree that our corporate- and military-controlled government needs to be abolished. Be the one you are. There's room at the table for everyone (with the exception of genderized dictators) as we witness our government's continuing grip on fascism.
There should be reserved seating for OSU's Jean Moule and Jerry V. Diller. Thanks to EW and Bryan Andersen for profiling their book Cultural Competence: A Primer for Educators. This book is about the methods we can all agree on -- helping to put us in touch with each other.
Robert Simms, Corvallis
MORAL CHOICES
After reading "Ike" Terrance's letter "Radical Loonies" (11/16), it is clear to me that he has missed something that my experience has taught me. While I applaud his interest in the quality of local entertainment and his concern for the environment, his analysis of the situations touched on in "Flames of Dissent" seem shallow. Might that be because a deeper look would threaten his moral standing?
In my brief time on this earth, 26 years, I have experienced numerous lifestyles, one of which came while I was enlisted in a branch of this nation's armed services. I had a new car and nice clothes, and I used cologne. However, I gradually began to wake up to the responsibility I had in the death of life. I started making changes in my lifestyle, and became what "Ike" would probably refer to as a "Radical Loony."
Example: I abhor unnecessary violence and murder. From what I gather from Ike's concern over the potential for harm to life during acts of eco-sabotage, it sounds like Ike does too. While in the service I adopted a vegan diet, no easy feat. I wonder what Ike's dietary choices are. Some dismiss using non-human animal products as "nature's food chain." The facts are out: Industrial agriculture is not a natural process, and it's inefficient. So how long then till it's me who serves as your commodity?
All the "Ikes" out there can dismiss the passionate reactions of peoples as "lunacy" or terrorism, but to them I pose these queries: What is the difference between white power and black power? What is the difference between Israeli aggression and Palestinian aggression? What is the difference between machines that destroy our natural environment and destroying those machines? One is the function of an oppressor, the other the defense of the oppressed.
Jake Dutton, Eugene
*****
-- Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_: http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/ News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
Dan Clore
2006-12-23 05:33:08 EST
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
*****
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/12/21/news1.html FLAMES OF DISSENT: The local spark that ignited an eco-sabotage boom -- and bust BY KERA ABRAHAM Part V: The Ashes
More than a decade ago, a 21-year-old Lacey Phillabaum danced barefoot in a blue sundress on the downtown Federal Building lawn. A recent UO graduate, eco-radical writer and defender of the old-growth trees at Warner Creek, she jumped with other activists to the live lyrics of Casey Neil's "Dancing on the Ruins of Multinational Corporations."
Nine and a half years ago, an emboldened Phillabaum watched a truck roll within arm's length of a fellow activist during a forest defense protest on a highway near Detroit, Ore. Less than a month later, she and other Earth First! Journal editors defiantly perched in doomed downtown Eugene trees until police pepper-sprayed them down.
Seven years ago, after quitting the journal, Phillabaum joined the protests against the WTO in Seattle. As the host of Tim Lewis' documentary Breaking the Spell, she later defended the actions of the black-clad anarchists who looted and vandalized corporations they'd viewed as destroyers of the Earth.
Five and a half years ago, Phillabaum acted as the lookout during the arson of a University of Washington horticulture center -- a crime she committed in concert with her new boyfriend, Stan Meyerhoff, and other activists. On the same night in Clatskanie, Ore., eco-radicals torched the offices and trucks of Jefferson Poplar Farm. The coordinated arsons, executed in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, were intended as a statement against genetic engineering.
But by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a combination of mounting paranoia and infighting had shattered Eugene's eco-radical scene like glass in storefront windows at the Battle of Seattle. Phillabaum and Meyerhoff moved first to Bend and later to Charlottesville, Va., where she wrote for an alternative newsweekly and he studied engineering. They appeared to be on a straight path, their criminal past left in ashes.
Until December of last year, when the FBI busted Meyerhoff for participating in nearly a dozen of 20 environmentally motivated sabotage acts across the West between 1996 and 2001. Phillabaum turned herself in soon after and began working as an unnamed cooperator with the feds. (The bust may explain why she called off a freelance assignment for EW on "sustainable" beef production last winter. "I am having some heavy family problems," she wrote in a Feb. 24 email, "and I thought they were clearing up but they are not." As recently as Autumn 2006, Phillabaum was listed as a copy editor for Eugene Magazine.)
Today, Phillabaum is facing three to five years in jail -- or 25, if federal prosecutors can nail her as a terrorist -- because she'd slipped, even briefly, from the Earth Day of above-ground activism into the Earth Night of underground sabotage.
Phillabaum is one of 12 defendants who have pleaded guilty to a flare of environmentally motivated arsons in the federal sting known as Operation Backfire. One targeted activist has pleaded not guilty, another committed suicide in jail, and four are fugitives. One more, the government's first informant, lives in Eugene and has not been indicted. The cooperators face recommended sentences of three to about 16 years (for Phillabaum and Meyerhoff, respectively), but federal prosecutors have said they will try to tack 20-year "terrorism enhancements" onto each sentence.
The 10 defendants before the Oregon courts are scheduled for sentencing in April. Washington defendant Briana Waters will face trial in May, and Phillabaum and Jennifer Kolar -- whose plea deals may hinge on their testimonies against Waters -- are to be sentenced in July.
The domino effect of the arrests and cooperation agreements have been surreal for local eco-radicals who knew the defendants. Generally speaking, second only to the community's disdain for the authorities is its disappointment with the cooperators. Most loathed is Jake Ferguson, the apparent ringleader of the eco-saboteurs and the feds' primary informant, who still walks free; U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut has said that prosecutors haven't yet decided "what to do with him."
Nearly as resented is Meyerhoff, apparently the feds' secondary informant, followed by Phillabaum and Kolar, who likely began working with authorities around spring 2006. Many local eco-radicals are likewise upset with Chelsea Gerlach, Kevin Tubbs, Kendall Tanksersley, Darren Thurston and Suzanne Savoie, who had begun cooperating by July.
Most of the community insiders who spoke with EW maintain their support for Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Nathan Block and Joyanna Zacher, who struck an unusual deal with prosecutors allowing them to confess to their own crimes without incriminating others, and Olympia resident Briana Waters, who maintains her innocence.
"What's upsetting is how quickly people are folding and how namby-pamby and weak Earth First! looks when you compare it to the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement, where people have held out for decades without talking," said former Earth First! Journal co-editor Jim Flynn. "It just makes our movement look weak and soft and middle-class. For people like me, who have spent years in the movement, it's embarrassing. How will we recruit new people?"
But another movement veteran, former Earth First!er James Johnston, attacks not the cooperators but the people who criticize them. "It's a bunch of dimwits who talk a big talk about arson and anarchism and a bunch of other crap," he wrote by email. "Now they don't seem to have anything better to do than make up bunch of lies about the people who actually did the arsons and ARE taking responsibility for it."
Johnston, an ex-boyfriend of Phillabaum's, sat next to her at the Dec. 11 sentencing hearing in Eugene. Other activists in the courtroom avoided them both.
Eugene's eco-radical era was a fire that blazed through town for half a decade, bringing together Earth First!ers, anarchists, artists, feminists and animal advocates who rejected authority and envisioned a freer, greener world. Their flame manifested in art projects, housing cooperatives, forest defense campaigns, anti-globalization rallies, independent media and, notoriously, the flare of environmentally motivated arsons.
By mid-2001 that eco-radical fire had consumed itself, sputtering out as activists split over dogmatic differences and personality clashes. In subsequent years federal surveillance pressed down like a fog, nearly extinguishing the remnant embers.
How did this fire, and Operation Backfire, change the local activist landscape? What grew from the ashes?
It may no longer be so radical, but Eugene's environmentalist community continues to nurture seeds sown at the peak of the movement in the late '90s. Volunteers with the Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team (NEST), a group formed out of the Fall Creek forest defense campaign, still scout for red tree vole nests in an effort to battle timber sales on public lands. Cascadia Wildlands Project, a forest advocacy group founded in 1997 by James Johnston, regularly brings legal challenges to federal logging projects; Jim Flynn is CWP board president, and another former EF!J co-editor, Josh Laughlin, is director.
The eco-anarchist TV show Cascadia Alive! ended in 2004, but Tim Lewis is currently working to archive the shows for the UO library, and his documentaries of the Warner Creek blockade and the WTO riots are now available on DVD. Green Anarchy magazine, launched around 2001 by Robin Terranova and other local radicals, still publishes out of Eugene, while Earth First! Journal, which was headquartered locally from 1993 to 2001, has moved to Tuscon, Ariz. The journal struggles to stay afloat, with about one-third the subscribers it had in 1997.
In the Whiteaker neighborhood, eco-anarchist hangout Icky's Teahouse is gone, but Tiny Tavern carries on. The Ant Farm, an activist crash-pad, has folded, but the Shamrock House remains, with its "Free Wall" covered in anarchist art. The Jawbreaker gallery, founded by Warner Creek activist Stella Lee Anderson, still hosts alternative art shows, and the daffodil bulbs Kari Johnson planted in the shape of an anarchy symbol on a 4th Avenue lawn more than a decade ago still appear every spring. Food Not Lawns, the urban gardening movement founded by local activists Heather Coburn and Tobias Policha in 1999, has now gone national; Coburn recently published a book about it under the name H.C. Flores.
And though the arsonists who set fire to Willamette National Forest in 1991 have yet to be caught, the trees of Warner Creek still stand. Tim Ingalsbee, the "godfather" of the mid-1990s campaign against salvage logging, perseveres in his effort to get the site permanently protected as a research area.
Much like the Warner Creek salvage controversy, Operation Backfire illuminated two very different ways of viewing a burnt landscape: as a disaster to be cleaned up and salvaged, or as a natural cleansing, providing nutrients and light for rebirth. The bust seems to have dampened local eco-radicalism, stalled ELF actions, weakened Earth First!, and possibly even chilled progressive activism of all kinds. But Eugene remains a hub of eco-activity, and as sure as wildfires will continue to blaze through forests, stoking controversies in their wake, environmentalists will keep battling the forces of planetary destruction, their tactics evolving with the shifting political landscape.
*****
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/12/21/webextra1.html Is eco-sabotage terrorism?
On April 10, federal prosecutors will try to convince Judge Ann Aiken that it's appropriate for them to try to tack 20-year "terrorism enhancements" onto the sentences of the 10 Operation Backfire defendants who have pleaded guilty before the federal court in Oregon. Prosecutors have indicated that, if Aiken gives them the green light, they'll try to pin each of the defendants as a terrorist during their individual sentencing hearings. They'll likely do the same before the court in western Washington, where two more have pleaded guilty and a third awaits trial.
If prosecutors succeed, Lacey Phillabaum's recommended sentence of three to five years, the shortest proposed jail term for an Operation Backfire defendant, could become 25 years. Her boyfriend Stan Meyerhoff's sentence of almost 16 years, the longest proposed term, could become 36.
James Jarboe, chief of the domestic terrorism section of the FBI, told a House subcommittee in 2002 that "The FBI defines eco-terrorism as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature."
The key word in that definition is "violence." The 20 acts of eco-sabotage in the Operation Backfire case did not physically harm anyone, and evidence suggests that the saboteurs took extreme precautions to that end. "Not hurting people is such a part of every one of those people's philosophies," said Eugene activist Stella Lee Anderson, a former girlfriend of defendant Kevin Tubbs.
Yet few within the movement are willing to assert that local eco-anarchists in the mid-'90s were nonviolent by principle. "There's a lot of ways to define the words violence and nonviolence, and people couldn't get on the same page for what that meant to them," said Eugene eco-activist Cecilia Story. "Some people thought filling up a soaker gun with urine and spraying it at cops was really violent. Other people didn't. We would talk about things like that for weeks."
Prosecutor Stephen Peifer, however, suggests that the question of violence is moot in this case. Under a federal law titled "Acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries," anyone who "creates a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to any other person" by damaging property within the U.S. may be subject to the terrorism sentencing enhancement. "That's what we're working with," Peifer said. "The word violence doesn't come into play."
Still, many people -- including Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon -- are reluctant to call the eco-saboteurs terrorists. "As we know terrorism today, mass murder on the scale of the trade towers and the Pentagon, perhaps it would deserve a more specific label," DeFazio said, adding that the eco-arsons were "a destructive, stupid, criminal thing to do."
-- Kera Abraham
Thoughts from the trenches
Eugene eco-radicals weigh in on Operation Backfire.
Did the sabotage actions have their intended effect of waking up the public to environmental issues?
Jim Flynn sees some actions, like the arson of the Cavel West horsemeat plant (which was never rebuilt) and the BLM wild horse releases, as valid. "I think sabotage is a perfectly good way to grab people's attention," he said. "Ethical monkeywrenching, if done thoughtfully, can be an effective tactic." But, he added, the general public might not make the link between eco-sabotage and its political motives. "I think sabotage has lost its meaning in this country and people see it as terrorism," he said. "This country has a big problem with arson for any reason. I don't know why that is."
Chris Calef agrees that some actions may have been somewhat effective, but he cites others as ill-conceived, such as the arsons of the Oakridge Ranger Station, which incinerated years of Tim Ingalsbee's research, and the University of Washington horticulture center. "They destroyed some endangered seeds next door," he said of the UW arson. "Nice going."
In the case of the 1998 arson of the Vail ski resort, Stella Lee Anderson said, "They public's looking at it and thinking, 'Oh my gosh, that poor ski resort.' They don't see the forest that was destroyed for the ski run. They public's just stupid and lazy and ignorant and for the most part, they just don't care."
But forest defender Shannon Wilson hangs onto the hope that the actions weren't in vain. "Maybe when people read the stories and articles about these indicted folks some of them might stop and think about why these highly educated and idealistic young people risked their freedoms and life for such things as wild lynx, wild horses, ancient forests, wilderness, and our life giving biosphere," he wrote by email. "Perhaps they will think long enough to question their 'American dream' of building a 4,000 square foot McMansion with the 600 square foot redwood deck with two SUVs in the garage parked next to their 50 foot motor-home along side their 20 feet speedboat and their two all terrain vehicles on the edge of a once wild river. I believe that this is why these folks risked everything. They attempted to wake the people out of their 'American dream' nightmare that is destroying all life on this planet."
But Jeff Hogg, who spent nearly six months in jail for refusing to testify to the federal grand jury, doubts that the eco-sabotage actions woke anyone up. "They drew the attention of people who were already paying attention, and the people who aren't think they're a bunch of crazy criminals," he said. "I think [Operation Backfire] is gonna have a pretty chilling effect on a lot of activism."
How do you feel about the primary informant, Jacob Ferguson?
Tim Ream suspects that Ferguson may have been a federal provacateur all along. "I just don't know how else you can burn millions of dollars of property and not get indicted," he said. "Especially when you're the one link that brings everything together . . . I just can't understand why the guy who looks to me like the ringleader smack addict is driving around in an SUV and living free."
Tim Lewis, who lived across the creek from Ferguson in Saginaw, saw him as extremely self-determined: "If he needed heroin, he could get it. If he needed a woman to live with him and pay rent, he could get it." In Lewis' view, Ferguson didn't crack out of weakness or spite, but for his kid. "That's the only thing I ever saw Jake give a shit about, was his son," he said.
Cecilia Story is still creeped out by thoughts of Ferguson during the years he was secretly recording conversations for the FBI. "Wearing a fuckin' wire into my community? That is so not OK," she said.
But Heather Coburn is willing to cut Ferguson a little slack. "He's as much a victim of the system as we all are," she said. "I still have dreams about Jake where he redeems himself. He comes back the way he used to look -- he was into Aikido, he was a vegan, he was really kind and funny. What a heartbreaker." But now, local activists shun him. "When he goes walking down the street, he's like a ghoul," she said. "Jake is volatile sometimes; he's a Cancer. But he's not a violent person . . . I've never, ever been afraid that Jake was gonna hurt me. A lot of people try to paint him as sinister. He isn't; just maybe stupid."
Is it fair to blame the other Operation Backfire cooperators, given that they risked their freedom in an attempt to further their cause?
Shelley Cater feels upset and betrayed by the cooperators, even as she has some compassion for them. "If you can't stand by your convictions, then you shouldn't have been there in the first place," she said.
Although he's "pissed off" at some of the cooperators, Tim Lewis has a problem calling them snitches; they were the activists most willing to walk their radical talk. "I can look back at [the saboteurs] and what they did and say, 'Fuckin' A, man. They were kickin' ass.' These cats were out there in the middle of the night doing what they did . . . I think it's noble. I think it's very noble. I have a lot of respect for them."
James Johnston is not willing to condemn anyone, short of Ferguson, for cooperating. "I'm withholding judgement because I don't know anything about it," he said. He also worries that so-called "snitches" could face violence in jail. "Inmates don't have anything better to do than learn all they can about the people they live with," he wrote by email. "And they do routinely kill and maim other inmates justly or unjustly labeled as 'rats' and 'snitches.'"
How did the bust affect Eugene's eco-radical community?
Fire ecologist and activist Tim Ingalsbee has mixed emotions. "At this point I am dangerously ignorant of all this ELF stuff," he said. "I am aggrieved that good people are going down . . . I am genuinely saddened, and in deep denial." But he also feels that the saboteurs did real damage to the eco-radical movement. "This is kind of a pattern: These opportunists who think their heart is in the right place, but their brains certainly aren't," he said. "That is the danger with libertarian anarchy. It's completely unaccountable . . . While we [above-ground activists] are trying to educate the larger community, you [underground saboteurs] undermine the action, and you make all of the community activists targets."
Shelley Cater said the shared sense of persecution may have laid to rest old beefs that now seem petty by comparison. "Operation Backfire has gelled people in this town in a way I haven't seen them gel in a long time," she said. "The evil's so huge now that people are compelled into action . . . We are a battered community. Everybody's suffering some kind of grief. But it's made the strong stronger. The people who are dedicated are still in the fray . . . Our survival nature is coming to the fore."
Kari Johnson has drawn lessons from the peak and crash of Eugene's eco-radical scene. "I have learned to not accept other people's strategies if they aren't working," she wrote by email. "I won't let an individual jockey for a power position . . . I've also learned that rallies and marches and such aren't so effective at changing the minds of the rulers as they are at changing the minds of the participants." She complains that media have taken the eco-sabotage angle and made a "cowboys and [I]ndians story out of real life," leaving out the less sensational characters -- the old, the young, "the weirdos and the moms," -- and the positive, quirky things the local eco-radical community did, like forging art alliances and forming a Red Rover line against the riot cops. "It comes down to young white black-clad folks who destroyed property worth money," she wrote by email. "How can anyone who wasn't here make any sense of it?"
How did the bust affect the larger environmental movement?
"There is renewed activism and involvement, not only in EF!, but also in the National Lawyers Guild, grand jury education projects, prisoner support networks, indymedia, etc.," Jim Flynn wrote by email. "The movement cannot be killed simply because of the fact that the planet is being killed. Time and time again people will rise up when they realize their life support is being cut off . . . At the end of the last decade many enviros became involved in the anti-globalization movement which continues to this day. With the election of Bush, many enviros are also now civil rights activists, even more so after the busts."
Humboldt State sociologist Tony Silvaggio, who lived in Eugene for years and knows several of the defendants, sees the bust in the context of a larger neo-conservative attack on progressive activism. "It's destroying the institutions and communities in Eugene. The government's guilt-by-association and divide-and-conquer approach has really succeeded," he said. "They're out to crush dissent, period. They've targeted this movement because it's an easy target; Al Qaeda is fuckin' hard. They need to show results. They need to show the American people that 'There are terrorists out there, and we caught them.' . . . Where is the mainstream environmental movement in any of this? Where is the labor movement? If we let this go, 10, 20 years down the road, any traditional protest activity is gonna be labeled as terrorism."
"It's not hard to imagine environmental radicals coming out of this about as popular as Al-Qaeda in the mainstream press," wrote Chris Calef by email. "However, just as the factors that led up to anti-American sentiment abroad are rooted in world history and American foreign policy, so is the background to this case quite complicated and justified on both sides. The public has a right to be concerned about people who burn buildings, there's no doubt about that. But conscientious middle-class kids, like most of these were, do not just up and decide for no apparent reason to risk their freedom by engaging in clandestine political sabotage. The environmental issues that motivated these acts are very real, and as yet unresolved. If there were tens of thousands of mainstream liberals out in the streets every day demanding resolution on global warming, oil dependency, nuclear proliferation, and so on, then we probably wouldn't see these kids feeling the need to take desperate steps like the ones that got them in so much trouble. It's easy to blame the immediate culprits, but until the problems get solved, I think it's fair to expect that more and more young people might make similar choices. Calling them 'terrorists' and locking them away isn't going to solve anything."
*****
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/12/21/views1.html Movement Gone Astray Consequences of a wrong turn BY SPRUCE HOUSER
As someone who was involved in the early stages of the Warner Creek campaign (and happened to create the "wild and free" blockade banner on the opening page of "Flames of Dissent"), I would like to affirm the wonderful idealism of many participants. However, an unfortunate potential consequence of this series is that the exposure given to the history leading up to sabotage may tend to only increase an already existing fragmentation of Eugene's activist community.
Activists at Warner Creek were tapping into the strength of nonviolent resistance -- what Gandhi called satyagraha or moral power of truth. This philosophy sees our entire society as trapped within the spirit of violence and those who implement its policies as simply captured as well. Nonviolence seeks the liberation of all from this system, including those currently blinded by it.
I believe the victory at Warner Creek was attributable to this approach. But I also saw it unravel. Forest Service law enforcement officers began to become de-humanized as "the enemy." This led later to an even more complete demonizing of Eugene police officers by some anarchists in the "wars" which ensued in the Whiteaker neighborhood. When the commitment to nonviolence devolved into a hostile dichotomy of "us versus them," its power was forsaken.
For this reason, describing this period as the "eco-radical era of Eugene" makes a fundamental error. My dictionary defines "radical" to mean "going to the root, foundation, or source." The activism depicted does not address the source at all, but instead is trapped within the superficial levels of an old paradigm that can only lead to polarization.
In no way do I defend heavy-handed police actions or extremely excessive sentences. I only try to make two points. In tactics involving arson, it is all but inevitable that people will eventually become either maimed or killed. As was the case when someone was accidentally killed by a bomb in Madison, Wis., to protest the Vietnam war, such an incident would be used to totally discredit whatever cause with which it is associated.
Secondly, such tactics are counter-productive. If activism is based on hatred, it is going to invoke those same kinds of hateful energies in response. Rather than lift all of humanity to the higher place we all need to go to in order to avoid a planetary eco-catastrophe, such tactics only deepen divisions and squander precious energy toward symptoms rather than causes.
David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, recently spoke to a capacity crowd in Eugene to promote his new groundbreaking book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. In his stirring presentation, he described the stark decision humanity now faces in whether it will continue to support a worldview/paradigm driven by the imperatives of empire or choose to non-cooperate with and disempower that mentality. Many points of this quite important book are succinctly summarized in an article by Korten available online (at www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1463).The modus operandi of empire is violence. Only through the infliction of violence on a mega-scale can the empire be upheld. It has become the master of such application and will not be defeated by any strategy attempting to pick up this self-destructive tool. It can only be overcome by an energy more powerful, which is what would be embodied in a mass movement dedicated to the unswerving application of active nonviolent resistance, non-cooperation and boycott.
Gandhi's movement is the best example of the power of such resistance in confronting an empire. His thesis that all power is ultimately held by the people was proven correct. When enough people of India non-violently refused to cooperate with the British system, its hold was broken.
Similarly, what power would the mega-corporations have if we developed a truly eco-sustainable culture which turned its back on mass consumerism? This is a societal paradigm shift that will require several generations to accomplish. But is it not better to model the positive alternatives and take the first faltering steps of a movement that could actually succeed than engage in polarizing actions which do not address the source and are therefore destined to fail?
Rather than looking backward, it is far more important to learn the lessons being offered and move forward. If we are ever to break free from the empire mentality that dominates the planet and gravely threatens its future, it is my hope that such will be the case.
Spruce Houser has participated in the organizing of several campaigns based on the principles of Gandhian nonviolence, addressing such issues as nuclear energy (Trojan), nuclear weapons, forest protection and corporate power.
After following the saga of "Flames of Disssent" and reaching what appeared to be the conclusion (12/7), my heart sank as I read the sentencing.
I was looking at a list of apparently ordinary people -- most of them educated -- getting a "recommended sentence" of sometimes more than 14 years! As much as I don't like to see vandalism, especially in the form of arson, I cannot help realizing that whatever brought these folks to act like they did was pure despair and very likely not being heard. We have not even talked enough about the fundamental reason why they felt compelled to act like this; we just focused on the destruction of private and federal property. It sounds and looks better on the news. These very people had only one message in mind: "This is the only earth we know of; we don't want it gone!"
The message of Authority is clear: hard cracking down in order to make examples and discourage others to follow in the tracks of the "eco-terrorists" -- how convenient a word. Don't get any ideas, now! Go back to your homes; everything is going to be all right. Come on! We all know there are so many worse crimes out there that hardly resulted in two or maybe three years in the can!
One thing is sure: For the "eco-terrorists," they will find jail room. Maybe by releasing a dozen sex offenders or corrupt politicians. (Oh, that's right! The latter get promoted.)
I send a message to whoever rejoiced at seeing the sentencing: Don't you like to breathe clean air? Don't you enjoy walking in our magnificent nature? When was the last time you (not your landscaper!) planted a tree? What would be your reaction if someone was threatening the life of your mother? Look at the big picture and understand. Your Mother is everything around you: the air you breathe, the water you drink, everything!
Alby Thoumsin, Springfield
*****
-- Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_: http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/ News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
Stan De SD
2006-12-23 11:14:23 EST
"Dan Clore" <clore@columbia-center.org> wrote in message news:458D05E4.9030105@columbia-center.org... > News & Views for Assholes...:
> More than a decade ago, a 21-year-old Lacey Phillabaum > danced barefoot in a blue sundress on the downtown Federal > Building lawn. A recent UO graduate, eco-radical writer and > defender of the old-growth trees at Warner Creek, she jumped > with other activists to the live lyrics of Casey Neil's > "Dancing on the Ruins of Multinational Corporations." > > Nine and a half years ago, an emboldened Phillabaum watched > a truck roll within arm's length of a fellow activist during > a forest defense protest on a highway near Detroit, Ore. > Less than a month later, she and other Earth First! Journal > editors defiantly perched in doomed downtown Eugene trees > until police pepper-sprayed them down.
Glad the cops took care of them.
> Seven years ago, after quitting the journal, Phillabaum > joined the protests against the WTO in Seattle. As the host > of Tim Lewis' documentary Breaking the Spell, she later > defended the actions of the black-clad anarchists who looted > and vandalized corporations they'd viewed as destroyers of > the Earth.
What else can you expect from one of the rent-a-mob Marxists that Clore is in love with?
> Five and a half years ago, Phillabaum acted as the lookout > during the arson of a University of Washington horticulture > center -- a crime she committed in concert with her new > boyfriend, Stan Meyerhoff, and other activists. On the same > night in Clatskanie, Ore., eco-radicals torched the offices > and trucks of Jefferson Poplar Farm. The coordinated arsons, > executed in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, were > intended as a statement against genetic engineering.
More like a statement on how stupid and scientifically illiterate these wack-jobs are. So-called "genetic engineering" has gone on for millennia - but you can't explain that to people who got solid D's in high-school science classes...
> But by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a > combination of mounting paranoia and infighting had > shattered Eugene's eco-radical scene like glass in > storefront windows at the Battle of Seattle. Phillabaum and > Meyerhoff moved first to Bend and later to Charlottesville, > Va., where she wrote for an alternative newsweekly and he > studied engineering. They appeared to be on a straight path, > their criminal past left in ashes. > > Until December of last year, when the FBI busted Meyerhoff > for participating in nearly a dozen of 20 environmentally > motivated sabotage acts across the West between 1996 and > 2001.
Well, it's about fucking time. Hopefully the more belligerent eco-Nazis had nightsticks jammed in the proper orificies so they could get a taste of what to expect from their new roomies at the Graybar Hotel.
> Phillabaum turned herself in soon after and began > working as an unnamed cooperator with the feds. (The bust > may explain why she called off a freelance assignment for EW > on "sustainable" beef production last winter. "I am having > some heavy family problems," she wrote in a Feb. 24 email, > "and I thought they were clearing up but they are not."
ROTFLMAO!!!
> As > recently as Autumn 2006, Phillabaum was listed as a copy > editor for Eugene Magazine.) > > Today, Phillabaum is facing three to five years in jail -- > or 25, if federal prosecutors can nail her as a terrorist -- > because she'd slipped, even briefly, from the Earth Day of > above-ground activism into the Earth Night of underground > sabotage.
Some people slip briefly from being mild-mannered wimps to murderers. I someone suggesting that we're supposed to be lenient because it's only an OCCASIONAL slip, right?
> Phillabaum is one of 12 defendants who have pleaded guilty > to a flare of environmentally motivated arsons in the > federal sting known as Operation Backfire. One targeted > activist has pleaded not guilty, another committed suicide > in jail,
Break out the champagne and granola bars. Hopefully they composted him in an eco-friendly manner - he would have wanted it that way.
> and four are fugitives. One more, the government's > first informant, lives in Eugene and has not been indicted. > The cooperators face recommended sentences of three to about > 16 years (for Phillabaum and Meyerhoff, respectively), but > federal prosecutors have said they will try to tack 20-year > "terrorism enhancements" onto each sentence.
Maybe they can lock them in a cell with some sexually frustrated gang-bangers looking for some white meat.
> The 10 defendants before the Oregon courts are scheduled for > sentencing in April. Washington defendant Briana Waters will > face trial in May, and Phillabaum and Jennifer Kolar -- > whose plea deals may hinge on their testimonies against > Waters -- are to be sentenced in July. > > The domino effect of the arrests and cooperation agreements > have been surreal for local eco-radicals who knew the > defendants. Generally speaking, second only to the > community's disdain for the authorities is its > disappointment with the cooperators. Most loathed is Jake > Ferguson, the apparent ringleader of the eco-saboteurs and > the feds' primary informant, who still walks free; U.S. > Attorney Karin Immergut has said that prosecutors haven't > yet decided "what to do with him."
At least the Feds got it RIGHT this time: break their morale and make them squeak. Keep them wondering each time they go squatting in their little feces-covered hovel named Camp Ruckus whether the fellow freak they confiding in is wearing a wire.
> Nearly as resented is Meyerhoff, apparently the feds' > secondary informant, followed by Phillabaum and Kolar, who > likely began working with authorities around spring 2006. > Many local eco-radicals are likewise upset with Chelsea > Gerlach, Kevin Tubbs, Kendall Tanksersley, Darren Thurston > and Suzanne Savoie, who had begun cooperating by July.
Ohh, the widdle enviwo-fweakies are upset... boo-fucking-hoo...
> Most of the community insiders who spoke with EW maintain > their support for Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Nathan > Block and Joyanna Zacher, who struck an unusual deal with > prosecutors allowing them to confess to their own crimes > without incriminating others, and Olympia resident Briana > Waters, who maintains her innocence. > > "What's upsetting is how quickly people are folding and how > namby-pamby and weak Earth First! looks when you compare it > to the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement, > where people have held out for decades without talking,"
ROTFLMAO! Most of them are spoiled little white kids - WTF were you expecting?
> said former Earth First! Journal co-editor Jim Flynn. "It > just makes our movement look weak and soft and middle-class. > For people like me, who have spent years in the movement, > it's embarrassing. How will we recruit new people?"
Oh, there will always be those who are criminally minded. Maybe they can get into methamphetamine trafficking like the others that share their dirtbag demographic?
> But another movement veteran, former Earth First!er James > Johnston, attacks not the cooperators but the people who > criticize them. "It's a bunch of dimwits who talk a big talk > about arson and anarchism and a bunch of other crap," he > wrote by email. "Now they don't seem to have anything better > to do than make up bunch of lies about the people who > actually did the arsons and ARE taking responsibility for it." > > Johnston, an ex-boyfriend of Phillabaum's, sat next to her > at the Dec. 11 sentencing hearing in Eugene. Other activists > in the courtroom avoided them both. > > Eugene's eco-radical era was a fire that blazed through town > for half a decade, bringing together Earth First!ers, > anarchists, artists, feminists and animal advocates who > rejected authority
Pure bullshit. They didn't REJECT authority or the use of force. They merely wanted to co-opt it for their OWN use. People who decide that they have a "right" to physically intimidate and destroy the property of others because they don't share their political/environmental views are no better than the Nazis who persecuted Jewish people, or the Islamofascists who call for jihad against the slightest dissent for their so-called "religion of peace". The FBI and local LE need to treat these people for what they are - fucking terrorist scum, to be locked up for a long, long time...
<Rest of whimpering for a bunch of filthy losers snipped for brevity...>
Branson Hunter
2006-12-23 14:01:17 EST
Stan de SD wrote:
Harping on communism again? Communism is dead. Why are you posting all this trash.
Branson
Stan De SD
2006-12-23 14:09:57 EST
"Branson Hunter" <bh2322@netzero.net> wrote in message news:1166900477.694085.43950@73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com... > Stan de SD wrote: > > Harping on communism again?
No, we were discussing eco-terrorism, you clueless dipstick. How about taking some reading comprehension courses instead of spending your pocket change on crack?
Branson Hunter
2006-12-23 15:24:35 EST
Stan de SD wrote: > "Branson Hunter" <bh2322@netzero.net> wrote in message > news:1166900477.694085.43950@73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com... > > Stan de SD wrote: > > > > Harping on communism again? > > No, we were discussing eco-terrorism, you clueless dipstick. How about > taking some reading comprehension courses instead of spending your pocket > change on crack?
Sadly, you'e always harping on communism, a dead issue. You're not very smart, are you. Twelve years of personal attacks from you is boring and crass.
Branson
N*@million.years
2006-12-23 15:50:09 EST
On 23 Dec 2006 12:24:35 -0800, "Branson Hunter" <bh2322@netzero.net> wrote:
>Stan de SD wrote: >> "Branson Hunter" <bh2322@netzero.net> wrote in message >> news:1166900477.694085.43950@73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com... >> > Stan de SD wrote: >> > >> > Harping on communism again? >> >> No, we were discussing eco-terrorism, you clueless dipstick. How about >> taking some reading comprehension courses instead of spending your pocket >> change on crack? > >Sadly, you'e always harping on communism, a dead issue. >You're not very smart, are you. Twelve years of personal >attacks from you is boring and crass. > >Branson