Final Issue -- The Bah Humbug Edition
*Ed. Note:
Hunkered down in the Blackberry House, I've given more thought recently to my dwindling wood pile and freezing waterlines than all my unfinished postings concerning Redwood Nation Earth First! I've been trying to decide when to call this project finished, and the incredible police attack on Minnehaha Free State (forwarded below) is the last depressing straw for me. Somewhere in doing this project, I realized that these actions are as important to the cops as they are to us-- these social causes and peaceful people are seemingly being used as test cases for what the system can spin to the public as legitimate tactics for the millenial police state.
I assemble these outdated fragments, knowing that many of you outside the redwood curtain have no other way of getting this info. At present, basecamp is functioning but marginally so and in a setting that ain't good vibes. The treesits continue, as do the oppressive tactics of the Hurwitz County machine. No conditions will ever change our love for these forests and our commitment that the truth about their demise be known. Our power to keep them standing remains to be seen.
My next stint at the eco-anarchist keyboard will be to develop the website at the Mendocino Environmental Center, so that I can learn to surf and cover even more fun things like the unending sanction-atrocities in Iraq and the once again imminent death warrant for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Thanks to everyone who sent food and cash to Earth First! and the MEC, everyone who went up and got their own taste of the wars, everyone who wrote me little electronic pats on the back, everyone who passed the story on, and everyone who allowed themselves to be radicalized by this information.
I hope everyone's lives are filled with peace and prosperity. And don't ever let those brutal robotic idiots steal your divine ability to love.
For the complete liberation of all sentient beings,
--fly Greenfield
On 26 October the pepperspray appeal was thrown out of court by a federal judge who ruled that "no reasonable person" would have a problem with the Humboldt Sheriff's use of pepperspray on peaceful protesters. The new release from Headwaters Action Video Collective, "Fire in the Eyes," is an up-to-date expose' on the horrors of pepperspray and the Sheriff's Department's bottom-line arguments for dealing inexpensively with activists. Copies can be obtained by contacting: havoc@humboldt.net
Fun with labor relations in November:
The round of Habitat Conservation Plan hearings brought out so much testimony on the literally hundreds of PL violations of forest practice rules that CDF actually had the backbone the revoke PL's operating license for the rest of the year. This doesn't actually save any trees, mind you-- revocation of the operating license has no effect on approved timber harvest plans. It simply means that PL's faller crews are not allowed to work, so they bear the brunt of the penalty while PL contracts out the plans to other fallers, and it's profit margins as usual.
Meanwhile, up the Pacific coast, workers are striking at the Kaiser Aluminum plant, another Hurwitz/Maxxam acquisition. Picketing workers there found themselves being scabbed by laid-off Pacific Lumber workers who had been offered nice sums to keep the aluminum plant running. Putting 2 and 2 together, Kaiser workers traveled to Scotia to have a talk with PL workers. Though the event was announced publicly, when the Kaiser workers arrived, PL workers were actually locked inside the mill so that no dialogue took place. Be it resolved that the people of Scotia are hostages. Some closed-door meetings took place between select individuals, but no one I know has been able to get the story of what happened there.
11 Dec.
It is a year and a day since Julia Butterfly began roosting in Luna, and I regret to say that the world she is waiting for to come down to seems no closer to reality than when she went up--
On Wednesday, December 9, PL climbers attacked two tree sitters at Gypsy Mountain. They made a direct assault on the activists' gear and supplies, cutting down EVERYTHING, apparently fully willing to cause death or injury. Rather than be intimidated, the sitters retreated up into the canopy, one of them even locking to the tree with a U-lock to his neck. They were left with no sleeping bags and no ropes for climbing down. In upland Humboldt in December this is clearly a life-threatening situation. In the late hours of the night that followed, EF! climbers were able to resupply the sitters and they are presently still at their posts. (Occupation remains intact as of 12/21.)
And finally, the long-awaited decision, from Humboldt County District Attorney Terry Farmer on who will be charged with the murder of David Gypsy Chain: nobody. No charges filed due to lack of evidence. Apartheid lives in Humboldt County.
*** End of Gypsy Mountain Rag ***
MINNEHAHA FREE STATE RAIDED BY 600 POLICE!
PROTESTERS INJURED AND JAILED - YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!
PROTESTERS ARE NOT RECEIVING MEDICAL ATTENTION! PLEASE CALL THE HENNEPIN COUNTY JAIL AT 612-348-5112 AND DEMAND MEDICAL ATTENTION FOR THE INJURED AND THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL THE PROTESTERS!
The Minnehaha Free State/Liberated Zone in Minneapolis MN was raided Sunday morning at 4am by 600 State Troopers in what MN Governor Arnie Carlson has called the largest law enforcement operation in MN history. Police fired tear gas into all 7 seven houses occupied by a coalition of Big Woods Earth First!, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community. 33 people were arrested, 20 of them from lockdowns. (included an activist in a Santa suit locked into the chimney of one of the homes) Many of the protesters where tortured with pepper spray and pain compliance holds. One protester who was locked by the neck to a tripod had his life put in serious danger when the police overturned the tripod without taking any precautions to protect him. The extent of his injuries remains unknown. Media were blocked from the site by a wall of riot police and there are extensive reports of police brutality.
During the raid various items sacred to the Mendota Community were destroyed. The sacred fire was extinguished in violation of federal laws which protect Native American religious expression. The sun dance tipi was destroyed, and the sweat lodge, site of numerous ceremonies over the past 4 months of occupation, was burnt down. Governor Carlson was on site gloating to the press and warming himself by the fires of burning camp materials.
The protesters occupied the homes to block a new highway project intended to take a few minutes of the driving time from downtown Minneapolis to America's largest mall, the Mall of America. The highway will cut through a park, destroy homes and one of the last remaining examples of old growth oak Savannah as well as sites sacred to the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota community. Over the course of the last 4 months the Mendota have been fighting for federal recognition as part of their efforts to protect the oaks and a sacred spring from destruction. Sunday was the protesters 133rd day of continuous occupation, believed to be the longest running urban occupation in American history.
For more information about the situation call the Big Woods EF! hotline at (612) 362-3387.
Your support is desperately needed to help with the legal defense and to keep the resistance alive. Checks can be made out to MNRAG and mailed to Big Woods EF! PO Box 580936 Minneapolis MN 55458-0936. There is also information posted at http://www.ruckus.org.
There will be a rally at the site Monday the 21st at noon. 5307 Riverview Rd Minneapolis
KEEP THE RESISTANCE ALIVE!