Live Wild or Die! #1

Special!

Industrial Civilization Collapse!

First Pre-anniversary Issue

WHY I DID IT, WHY I’LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN...

LIVE WILD OR DIE: It’s not a movement; it’s just a slogan. I just wanted to clear that up since the last thing we intend to do here is to provide another false justification for activity, another ideology or cause to sacrifice happily for. Elsewhere in this paper are discussions about the necessity of acting out of our own true desires, our own wild subjectivity, our internal wilderness. Personally, what I dream of is a fuller, wilder way of life and living, not just a new set of slogans to suffer for.

In this, the first, the world premier, the grand opening issue of Live Wild—we’ve included much material that we hope is reflective of the title and what we dream of and we’d like to see these ideas discussed and expanded further. Personally, I’m looking for a way out of industrialism, a way out of the global MegaWorkPillageMachine of civilization. I’m looking for the end of domination and boredom along with a solution to the ecological crisis. I wish for a re-enchantment of everyday life, a life of free-play and dreams, a planetary wilderness, a marvelous, daring interaction with the earth, each other and all of nature. And I want it now. Hope is suppressed desire, projected into the abstract Future; it allows us to bear a miserable present. I have no hope, only demands. There is no future, only Now. So why be modest in the face of impending doom? Live wild or die!

This is not an “Environmentalist” newspaper. Environmentalism is the political ideology which places bureaucratic band-aids on the industrial cancer. Environmentalism is single-issue Liberal politics divorced from the ensemble of life. This is not even a “radical environmentalist” paper! We need to re-invent the world, not re-label it. Avoiding categorization and (non-)thinking that refuses to break with the old packaging of ideas is but one of my necessary goals.

We’re also not out to create a niche for ourselves in the political or economic apparatus of the Machine. We have no intention of producing another commodity for the new hip eco-consumer market; another piece of eco-merchandise. This is the motivation for the variable price. We’d rather just give it away but the Post Office and printer are not yet convinced of our views of economics and property. On the off chance that we ever have money left over (ha ha), it will be put toward the kind of direct action we want to report on here. If you think anyone’s ever charging too much for this paper, please just rip it off. Or write us for a free copy. Price should never be a barrier to anything!

It may seem odd to be putting-out an anti=industrial journal when we are obviously using industrial paper, printing and transportation. If we dislike deforestation, the argument goes, shouldn’t we just quit using paper and wood? But do we really have a choice in the matter? Our participation in the industrial process is not voluntary. It is imposed upon us with force: work or starve; pay or go to jail; conform or be shot. We have none but the false choices, the logic of lesser evils presented by the Machine: Democrat or Republican? Communist or Capitalist? Brand A or brand B? Factory slavery or office slavery? Industrialism is a system, an entire, inescapable net of social organization. Even if a few of us went off into the wilderness to live, it would be but an illusory escapism. The Machine is, or soon will be, everywhere. Indeed, we can reduce our impact and dependence on the system a bit by recycling, boycotting the worst corporate offenders, reducing our level of consumption, etc. but even this only rearranges the excrement, makes the shit a bit less stinky. But the offal is the result, not the cause, of the destruction. It is the industrial empire—its technological, mechanical, political, social, psychological and economic apparatus combined into a unified operation, the Machine—that is responsible for the state of the planet and our daily living conditions. We reproduce it but we have no control over it. This is the contradiction, the inconsistency that it feeds off and exploits in order to enlarge itself. Liberation is impossible for the individual while the Maching still functions. The solution, while starting individually, is global or it is not at all. This is no reason for despair, just for action. This paper is intended to spread ideas that further the dismantling of the Machine so that someday we won’t need newspapers. So, don’t recycle this paper, use it to start a sawmill on fire!

But I’ve been wondering lately if newspapers aren’t what we do instead of re-inventing reality, instead of really solving our problems. Perhaps we produce journals when we’re too afraid of real communication. If a planetary alternative to the Industrial plague is sought, then communication is imperative. But... could it be that newspapers (and radio, tv and all the rest) are Inherently divisive and alienating? All media do just that: mediate. And by mediating, they kill the life from everything human and natural they touch: experience, relations, communication. Newspapers place objects between people and the objects speak. When objects speak for us, we remain mute and isolated from one another. Sometimes many people build objects and the objects talk to each other. This is called a “free press” and our ability to observe objects of this free press while remaining in passive isolation is upheld as a great privilege. People have even been convinced to die for this “right.”

Maybe we should not do newspapers at all. Believe me, this whole effort has been anything but adventurous, interactive or liberatory— anything but wild. Mostly, it has inspired me to go out and try removing barriers and objects that stand between myself and potential allies. I want to attempt, however feebly, to experiment with what it is to be really human and not just a cog in the Machine or a unit in the Economy. Many of us speak—rather starry-eyed—of creating a new tribalism, of discovering and creating nature-based communities. But these require direct interaction with one another and to function, can never be mediated by objects or notions of hierarchy or economy. How, then, can newspapers be anything but an unnecessary diversion, an interference in this discovery process?

I can’t help but speculate that we could all do more good by becoming merry wanderers, roaming the countryside and spreading subversion person-to-person, defining and Initiating common projects and resisting the Machine in the best way of all—by direct example. There is a world waiting to be seized, a global wildness yet to be liberated,boundless passions co be realized—if only for enough desire and imagination to do so.

— Mikal Jakubal

February 16, 1988 From a boring room in Bellingham, Washington after three days in front of this fucking typewriter with no end in sight

My Anti-Editorial

(or, “How I spent My Winter Vacation”)

by Chaco

So this is the part where I’m supposed to put into words why I’ve spent the last several weeks in a yucky city, grueling over a hot light table, pecking away at this stupid typewriter, and inhaling toxic xerox fumes until I’m sure I have no intact brain cells left. There must be a reason for this madness after all.

There is one thing I’d like to clear up right off; this paper does NOT represent “The Split” faction of Earth First!, as many people have already questioned us about. We’re not attempting to offer a philosophy which can be defined by the opposition of another. In fact, we’re not offering a “Philosophy” at all! We’re endeavouring only to offer an open forum to encourage the freethinking of individuals who would like to see not only wilderness being preserved, but the whole damn destructive leviathan eliminated once and for all....because we’re tired of watching the planet we live on being hacked away at by people who consider themselves “authorities,” and we’re tired of living our lives in chains, ever-supressing our own wild natures.

Surely the battle that Earth First! is fighting is laudable and many of us have learned from it. But what was once supposed to be a movement has become self-limiting in its scope. It’s done this by trying so hard to define itself, and thereby draw boundaries which encircle some and eliminate others.

It’s become a banner under whose (I hate to say it) authority some people take action. In this way, Earth First! has become sort of a branch of the Environmental Movement. There are those who will argue this point, but the bottom line is that there are lots of vital voices which are not being heard within the realm of Earth First! and that’s bad.

Which brings me to why I’m suffering myself with Newspaper Fever. Well, the main reason is because when I put my ear to the common ground of people involved in Earth First!, the anti-authoritarian movement, Native struggles, the Animal Liberation Front, eco-feminism, direct action, and anyone else who’s actively trying to stop The Machine from killing us all, then I can hear a deep rumble that I imagine to be the first tremors of an industrial-civilization quake, and that’s music to my ears.

The scope of our problem is enormous and each movement approaches the problem solving differently. Perhaps a fault of too many of us is to limit our perception not only of the problem, but of what to do about it too. We could benefit by listening to each other, because many of us have the same ultimate dream.

I’m hoping this paper can become a sort of soapbox situated on common ground, for people who have ideas on how to make that dream come true.

But there’s something else that’s been bothering me. Within some movements, I’ve noticed a serious deficiency of healthy self-criticism, and that’s a mistake with grave consequences. Any movement should be open not only to self-criticism, but also to the “outside” criticism of would-be allies. If we can’t allow ourselves to be criticized, then we can’t change and grow. Our ideas become doctrines, running rivers become stagnant swamps, wild animals become cement statues to remind us of what was once alive.

With that in mind, let me say that I hope somewhere between the front and back cover of this paper, we’ve managed to take (at least) a jab at almost everyone, (including ourselves—do you know that we have an envelope marked “Live Wild or Die Receipts?” Does that seem absurd to you?)

In essence, this paper is a place to dream...of a wild, free natural world with wild, free, natural humans living as part of the world instead of against it. And perhaps more importantly, it’s a place to consider our game plan—just how we’re going to make it happen. And it’s a place where we can openly and freely consider our mistakes along the way.

But this paper is NOT living wild. (Will someone else please volunteer to do the next one?? I’M OFFICIALLY RESIGNING!!!) Therefore, I guess the title is a contradiction. “Live Wild or Die” belongs back around the campfire in the woods where it originated.

To me, it’s a choice—If I can’t live wild, then I want to die wild. But, it’s also a fact; if people don’t start living wild, we will die. In fact, people who aren’t living wild are already dead. But, there’s one more way to take it, and those of you who are thinking on THAT are the ones I really want to hear from!

(A)nticopyright

No Rights Reserved.

Reproduce Freely.

(THE NEWSLETTER, NOT EACH OTHER!)

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So, Mike Roselle gave us some Direct Action Fund money to help pay for this rag, since it’s the first issue and all. We were supposed to make a point of saying that, but we weren’t supposed to say that he actually submitted some stuff to be printed too. Any way, he hasn’t seen any of this yet and I guess there’s a good chance he may never give us any money again. SO, needless to say, we will gladly take donations of any amount. But if you don’t have money or you’re in jail or something, tell us and we’ll send you one anyway. And, naturally, if you see one for sale and you steal it, then it’s free too...

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POB 411233 San Francisco, CA 94141

■ World Rulership Changing

am celebration in Portland Oregon

SNOW

by Rabinowitz

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Please send any submissions, donations, letters, requests, comments, or hate mail to: L.W.O.D

POB 411233 San Francisco, CA 94141

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for info about this tour, see inside... it’s on the page about the ancient forest — the one with all the leaves.

April 22: morning send-off rally in Seattle

April 24: evening show (and overnight) in Bismark, ND

April 25: evening show in Minneapolis/St. Paul

April 26: stop in Waterloo; evening show in Des Moines, Iowa

April 27: stop in Omaha, Neb.; overnight in Davenport, lowa

April 28: evening show in Chicago, IL April 29: rally in Chicago (depart 5/1 am)

April 30: stop in Gary, Ind.; evening show in Detroit, Mich. ¡i^ May 1: stop in Detroit; evening show in Cincinnati, Ohio

May 2: evening show in Columbus, Ohio

May 3: stops in Newark and Cleveland; overnight in Akron, OhigTy

May 4: stop in Pittsburg; evening show in Harrisburg, Penn.

May 5: evening show in New York

May 6: rally in New York; evening show on Long Island At

May 7: evening show in Philadelphia, Penn.

May 8: evening show in Washington, D.C.

May 9: rally in Washington, D.C.

May 10: evening show in Atlanta, GA

May 11: evening show in Nashville, Tenn Y

May 12: evening show in St. Louis, MO

May 13: evening show in Kansas City

May 14: lay-over in Oskaloosa, Kansas

May 15: am school shows in Lawrence; evening show in Witchita, KS

May 16: evening show in Denver or Boulder, Col.

May 17; stop in Laramie, WY; evening show in Salt Lake City, Utah

May 18: evening show in Boise, Idaho

May 20: am celebration in Portland Oregon

stop” = news conference

“evening show” = slide presentation

-also implies overnight stay in that location ’

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othen footsteps acnoss unbnoken expanses may disappean after winten justice, fighting off the eclipse of Earth in the humans’ shadow

evening show” = slide presentation

-also implies overnight stay in that location

needless to say, we

olden people suddenly smiting at each othen, thnee-yean-olds letting themselves out the back doon to make thein own footsteps

Hannible gnatings of the city one hushed--jets one mene distant numbles, cans sound tike moving slush Othen sounds one muted too--

l gnin oven the faint tinkle of bnoken glass as another butldozen is bunied in white, spurting hydnulic ¿laid quickly lost-, ninging mallets hit spikes in a soundpnoof honest Somewhere if, this snow extends fan enough even jack hammens on misste silos

stop” = hews Bonference

/W computed us& //V pwwcwA/ er w/s A/EàJscprr^pf!,

will gladly take donations of any amount.

But if you don’t have money or you’re in jail or something, tell us and we’ll send you one anyway. And, naturally, if you see one for sale and you steal it, then it’s free too...

In the Pentagon they’ne still making excuses ion the downing of Libyan ainplanes

send-off rally in Seattle’ ■

show (and overnight) in Bismark, ND show in Minneapolis/St. Paul

Waterloo; evening show in Des Moines, Iowa

Omaha, Neb.; overnight in Davenport, lowaSi show in Chicago, IL <’<v^

For more information about Direct Action Fund or to send donations, (not tax deductable!), write: D.A.F. pob 81 Canyon, CA 94516

ANCIENT FOREST RESCUE EXPEDITI

rally in Chicago (depart 5/1 am) ^Tvi:

stop in Gary, Ind.; evening show in Detroit, Mich.

stop in Detroit; evening show in Cincinnati, Ohio

evening show in Columbus, Ohio ‘^

stops in Newark and Cleveland; overnight in Akron, OhigYX stop in Pittsburg; evening show in Harrisburg, Penn. ‘J,; evening show in New York iy!

rally in New York; evening show on Long Island > , . j^ evening show in Philadelphia, Penn. . .... / A’Z

evening show in Washington, D.C. iv,’

rally in Washington, D.C. ,,

evening show in Atlanta, GA

evening show in Nashville, Tenn Y ^¿; ,

evening show in St. Louis, MO w-¹

evening show in Kansas City a ‘L

lay-over in Oskaloosa, Kansas Agi :  ’ ’

am school shows in Lawrence; evening show in Witchita, KS evening show in Denver or Boulder, Col.

stop in Laramie, WY; evening show in Salt Lake City, Utah evening show in Boise, Idaho

• What Happens When We Die!

• Artificial Intelligence

—Is It Intelligent!

a How does Jehovah protect his Sheep’

B».

»liywrir-^ ^^<-

*1

ac said “-it wouldn’t be the first time” when I pointed out that he’d go up for murder if he cut our rope.

This totally unexpected reaction should be considered by anyone planning to put themselves in a similar situation. As Mike Petersen said, “I’ve never been so glad to see a cop in my life.” Extra support and planning for immediate liason with the law enforcement are highly recommended when the drama of one’s actions is equalled by the potential danger.

Another unforeseen occurrence left a serious stain on the experience for me. A climbing problem arose in exiting upwards off the rope back onto the building which I was not experienced in and had not trained for. By sheer luck, this mishap did not result in disaster. But just imagine the message value of an action in which a member of your party, or worse, a bystander, is injured or killed. Our movement, our efforts to work on behalf of life on the planet, would be critically compromised. We take risks and therefore we must bear responsibility for the consequences of those risks. Plan as though lives depend on it!!!

In The Belly Of Which Beast?

By Luke

From our pre-dawn post on a ninth-story rooftop above Denver’s 17^th (local version of New York’s Wall) Street, the scene looked and felt like a Blade Runner out-take. The night-lights of banks and insurance company skyscrapers composed abstract repeating patterns above and away. We were the outlaws, poised to strike at high noon. The opening day parade of the 83^rd Annual National Western Stock Show was due to pass directly beneath us six hours.

It was almost unbelievable to me that this stunt could be pulled off unnoticed: rise at 3 a.m., drive into the grid of glass and steel towers roll into the dark alley. The earliest of the worker ants beginning to cluster at bus stops, janitors clanging dumpsters, as the city machine begins to hum. Nobody looks down alleys in the city! We crash the fire escapes, haulhauling gear, rope, banner. Now, momentarily repose above it all; plumes of silent steam, stars, hints of gray to the east.

The surroundings enhance our sense of aiming right. Housed in the enormous cages around us are the powers which first brought the money, markets, railroads. And cows. Wolf slaughtering, land desecrating... I fight down exhilaration, the urge to howl out over the walls.

A thud. Perfect throw. Exactly as Eric (Doub, climber and technical genius of the enterprise) called it, the sand-filled sock lands beside us on the parapet. It’s tied firmly to a lightweight surveyor’s line which now links us to the roof across 17^th.

Securing the string, Mike and I retire to the stairwell and wait. Luckily, the forecast for -8°f with strong gusts has not arrived. We monitor the wind with great interest. The 15’x40’ banner could be very difficult out there. A few early gusts subside into calm.

At 11:45 we move our loads onto the roof, set anchors on heavy metal-pipe stair rails, and lay out the banner. We feel naked to the world. How long before we’re spotted? Eric signals, and pulls the static line (a heavy non-stretching rope) across with the string. The banner clears the edge, ripples, unfurls and hangs clear. No commotion vet: once we’re out there with the banner they won’t be stopping us.

Far down the street the parade is getting underway. I look over the edge. The sidewalk are sparsely populated. Where are the throngs we’d pictured?

Time to step out into space. That moment when you suspend disbelief and put your trust in rope, hardware, planning. Eric joins me on the rope from the opposite roof and we tighten up the banner, learning to handle its tendency to sail. The stretch from our anchor ropes leaves us about 15’ below rooftop level, the message pulled taut and level between us. Our support people move uo onto the roofs to protect the lifeline.

We’ve pulled it off, crashed the party. Passing below are the governor, the mayor, the the World Champion Cowboy, the cowgirls with American flags, the dignitaries waving numbly from limos.

It’s a dramatic first salvo in our week of efforts to undermine the western myths that have boosted this event into a $72 million spree for Denver, with rodeos and stock exhibits attended by half a million domesticated humans. Every truck dealer, radio station, hamburger joint deliriously jumps on the bandwagon.

Yet thanks to Colorado Earth First!, the Direct Action Fund and activists from all over, a counterpoint is being voiced. Eric Hoile and Mike Stabler are lassoing media opportunities. Television and newspapers feature the dramatic visuals of the banner hanging, and supporting text gets across our point that the taxpayers aer supporting the continued ecological devastation of public lands.

As Eric likes to proclaim: “LIQUIDATE THEIR STOCK!”

I’d like to cut away from the story here, the perfect action, but there were some hard lessons offered this time which must not go unheeded.

Our support team of Mike Petersen and Michael Robinson were physically assaulted by a security guard. Screeming that our “brains are gonna splatter on the sidewalk,” he produced scissors and threatened to cut the rope holding Eric and myself. Michael was forced to abandon his firmly held non-violent resistance and physically intervene. We’ve since learned that it is common practice to hire ex-cons for this kind of work, and they develop a fierce territoriality on their “turf”. In fact, this maniac said “it wouldn’t be the first time” when I pointed out that he’d go up for murder if he cut our rope.

This totally unexpected reaction should be considered by anyone planning to put themselves in a similar situation. As Mike Petersen said, “I’ve never been so glad to see a cop in my life.” Extra support and planning for immediate liason with the law enforcement are highly recommended when the drama of one’s actions is equalled by the potential danger.

Another unforeseen occurrence left a serious stain on the experience for me. A climbing problem arose in exiting upwards off the rope back onto the building which I was not experienced in and had not trained for. By sheer luck, this mishap did not result in disaster. But just imagine the message value of an action in which a member of your party, or worse, a bystander, is injured or killed. Our movement, our efforts to work on behalf of life on the planet, would be critically compromised. We take risks and therefore we must bear responsibility for the consequences of those risks. Plan as though lives depend on it!!!

HIGH OVER DENVER

—part two

by Lee

And so it was all so funny clambering over these rodeo spectators in their seats, “Ha, ha, excuse me, excuse me,” well the Indian Princess was on and she was our cue, her and her horse were out doing their thing, “Yeah for the Indians!” is what I say but Gawd, sheesh to hear to the Indian Princess gig for the third time in two days (cuz of recon and all that) hmmmm, but no time to barf now —Gary and I started wiggling and squiggling our way up the wall, thanks to some conveniently located I-beams, pipes, tubes, and what not. A small moment of stuckness in the skinny place and then some quick moves across the ducting onto a catwalk. At this point we’d collected a lot of dust and dirt (no one up here but usual monsters) and we figured we’d better collect our breath and nerves too, un-duct-tape the banner bundle, consult the Coliseum Climbers’ Guide. We’d had some hitches so far not the least of which was somebody forgot all the climbing ropes, so it was zilchola on plan A (a complicated medium altitude rappel/banner hanging/trapeze act). Well, the reason I brought the subject of hitches is to encourage banner hangers and civil disobediencers in general chat, yes hitches do happen but big deal! Also to lead into the hitch that was hap-around the time we got to the top the wall, which was that all the Coliseum lights were coming on (way early) in the middle of the Indian Princess act which was about to blow our cover! No big hitch, cuz all we had to do was run out on the cat-walk, cut left onto another catwalk and start hanging, which is what we did. Somewhat to our chagrin the carefully rolled banner ropes had become spaghetti but after some moments we got it straightened out. This large banner (11’x 40’) and ha, ha, various and assorted boos and hissings were wafting up form below which made our hearts exceedingly proud! This is what the banner said: “WILDERNESS, WILDLIFE, CLEAN WATER. COWS OFF PUBLIC LANDS!” So... after that there was nothing left to do and I could see we were headed for an adrenaline slump real quick like. I suppose we could’ve pulled off an un-roped rappel into that sea of cowboy hats down below (spectacular) and yes, it’s true in one swell foop we could’ve taken out the rodeo announcer (Mr. Syrup-voice) who was directly (or near enough) below us. No, Gary suggested that we try and escape which was a novel idea seeing as how we’d been so intent on our stunt. So this is what we did: we skedaddled down the way we came. An usher nabbed Gary real quick and I lit out across some seats and spectators. “Ha, ha, excuse me, excuse me,” they wern’t looking quite so amiable and friendly this time, no siree, we’d been afraid there might ensue some nasty scenarios, hmmm, there was one woman trying to trip me somewhere in the middle of the row and some big cowboy types right past her, “Ha,ha, it’s a free country, excuse me,” and so on into the arms of security—theirs not ours. Busted! All of our compatriots had been kicked out earlier for not having tickets but Gena who had snuck back in was nearby, smiling at our victory and laughing at our soot covered cowboy clothes, and some usher saw that and she got rung too. So, there the three of terrorists are and everything a’swirling and a’whiling, confusion (you know how it is?!) and being passed off to various and assorted ushers and security guards and in all the confusion ended up against the wall guarded by this one and another comes along and says real authoritatively, “We gotta clear this place, you’re all gonna have to leave!” (he didn’t realize that we were the criminals) and that’s just what we did lickity-splitz out of there and lost in the crowd and running—the great escape! Hee, hee, haw, haw—they had us and they lost us!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WEST

[[]]

DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA

Review of DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA by John Robbins, available from the Earthsave Foundation, POB 949 Felton, CA 95018–0949; $11.95 plus $1.50 postage plus $.66 when CA state tsx applicable. Checks payable to John Robbins.

by John Seed

It seems strange to be writing a review of a book where I’ve only read the last chapter, but I’m doing this very deliberately. The book is John Robbins’ DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA, and the chapter, titled “All Things Are Connected”, is about the environmental effects of the livestock industry in North Anerica.

The rest of the book looks at issues like the awful lifelong suffering of most animals raised for food in feedlots and factories, the chemical contamination of their bodies and the ill health that eating these brings to humans, the fact that only a small reduction in the amount of meat consumed in North America would free enough grain to feed the 60 million people who will starve to death this year (In starving they strip their environment of whatever residual fertility it might still have-letting them starve is no solution to the environmental crisis) and so on.

I understand from people who have read the whole book that John Robbins writes eloquently and persuasively throughout. However, I deliberately avoid reading these other chapters because it gives me an opportunity to focus my undivided attention on a most neglected area: the environmental devastation caused by the livestock industry.

As a rainforest conservationist, I had been aware that cattle were one of the main factors in the destruction a? rainforests in Central America and elsewhere: more than a third of Central America’s rainforests have been cleared for cattle pasture; 200 million pounds of meat are imported annually into the US from Central America alone. In fact I had celebrated an important victory last year when concerted action by the US Rainforest Action Groups and Earth First! activists had forced Burger King out of Costa Rica and they had agreed to use only domestic beef.

But consider the following:

--Livestock consume 807. of the corn, 957. of the oats, 807. of the soybeans grown in the U.S. If people ate the grains instead of feeding them ‘to livestock, only l/20^th of this grain would be required. This would result in enormous savings in land (which could revert to wild), water and energy.

--Half of all the water used for any purpose in the U.S. is used by the livestock industry—to irrigate the grains they use, to wash the untreated sewage from the feedlots and factories into rivers and streams. It takes 25”, 000 gallons (ten tons!) of water to grow one pound of hamburger in the U.S. This water is heavily subsidised. If the subsidies were removed, this pound of hamburger would cost more than $35

--If this water were not removed from the aquifers, we would not need to mine them; they could remain a renewable resource.

If this water were not removed from the rivers but left to power existing electricity turbines and...

If such enormous amounts of power were no longer required to create and transport the agricultural chemicals used to grow the grains fed to the livestock, transport the grain and livestock, pump the water... Then we could shut down every nuclear power plant in the U.S.

--3/4 of the topsoil of the U.S. has been lost in the last 200 years. It is presently eroding and blowing away at the rate of several tons per human inhabitant per year. 857. of the topsoil loss is at the hands (or hooves as the case may be!) of livestock.

--More than 3 times as much meat is derived from formerly forested land as is derived from range land and this ratio is climbing every year-- as grazing lands are destroyed by the hooves of cattle, more and more forests are cut to replace them. So far, 260,000,000 acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-centered diet. At current rates, there will be no forest left in the U.S. in 50 years. For every person who switches to a pure vegetarian diet, an acre of trees is spared each year.

][MAME THIS QUOTE<br>I THINK THE ONLY GOOD COW IS THE ONE ON THE PLATE. I’M TRYING TO GET RIO OF COWS 8/ EATING THEM ILL.”<br>_{hint: Whole Earth Review Anniversary Issue Fall 1988.}

The sense I got after reading this chapter was that firstly the livestock industry may be the single most important factor in the destruction of the environment in the U.S. If we were able to change our diets to vegetarianism, (or only consume ecologically grown animal products --in which case meat would become an expensive condiment or spice) this would give us some desperately needed breathing space. It would buy us the time we will need to deal with some of the incredible environmental problems that we’re going to have to solve in no time at all just to survive.

Secondly, it gave me a realization of the tremendous overlap between the concerns of two of the most radical and progressive groups in the U.S.: the environmental movement and the animal rights movement.

Previously I had seen very little overlap between their concerns. Indeed, there was more than a little hostility between the two especially where issues pitted the survival of wild populations against the welfare of individuals (e.g., what to do about feral animals destroying wild ecology). Now, I realize that probably 807. or 907. of the suffering of individual animals in the U.S. (the factory farms and feedlots) is simultaneously one of the mos’. massive forces for destruction of the environment .

If this is so, then tremendous grounds fo: cooperation, for coalition building exist between these groups: I am an environmentalist. I am not an animal rightist. But let’s work together to shut down the livestock industry, taking care of the vast bulk of our problems and then perhaps discuss other issues where we don’t see eye to eye. Working together on thi ; issue may help us to understand each others’ perspective and solve other problems besides.

Finally it gave a new sense to the old adage of Thinking Globally and Acting Locally. How local can you get! Diet.

Here am I, spending my life trying to stop certain forces outside myself from destroying the world we share, from shredding the very biological fabric out of which we and all else grows, and now I discover that it is my habits of breeding and feeding that are the main culprits.

It’s not just the habits of the timber barons and industrialists that have to be altered, but our own, each and every one of us. And if we environmentalists, the ones who know, the ones who are concerned, if we can’t change, then how the hell can we expect change from the rest. If we can’t become the cutting edge of a true, real total awakening, well we might as well shut up and stay home.

But please, don’t shut up and stay home. Find the energy to deal with our crisis where it needs to be dealt with--everyehere simultaneously. It’s no use, it just won’t work to project the problems “out there”. We have to deal with them in here too.

It is our addictions that are, in the e consuming the fossil fuels and trees which i destroying the ozone layer and creating the greenhouse effect; that are mining the water and topsoil; that are causing us to crowd and poison our sister species at a rate such that another one million species will be extinct by I the turn of the century (as many as have become extinct in the last 20 million years).

For 15 years I had been that kind of vegetarian that ate no flesh, only milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, etc. The power of the last chapter of DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA was such that as I read it at one stroke, all animal products fell from my diet. Painlessly. Without effort or sacrifice. Whew. How can I describe the power of the enormous Truths revealed by scouring out old conditionings and habits and leaving me transformed.

One of the most important realizations that I got from reading this chapter was of what Mahatma Ghandi called “Satyagraha”, Truth Force. It’s not a matter of making more sacrifices, being more dutiful, making enormous effort. It is a matter of inviting the Truth to work within us, of not resisting the Truth for fear of the enormous changes that it will necessitate in our lives.

Read this book.

On January 31, a large barn in Sacramento, CA used for public stock auctions was torched by someone who apparently was unhappy about the current grazing activities on public lands. A few days prior to the blaze, the building had been spraypainted with “Cows Off Public Lands” -type slogans and derogatory comments about welfare ranching. The barn burned to the ground. Unfortunately, it did not start the rest of Sacramento on fire.

In an effort to stay compliant with state and federal laws regarding the distribution of instructions to build destructive devices, we endeavor to redact such materials. We regret the damage that such redactions do to the completeness of our archive and apologize to our readers.

Kelpie Willsin

an attitude is the outlook of the slave. A fattened, domestic animal loses its ability to give and take

Life, they say, began as a self-replicating, complex molecule in a primordial protein soup. In order to create duplicates of itself, this DNA precursor appropriated smaller proteins as building blocks. When the supply of inanimate proteins became scarce, the replicators were forced to consume each other to provide for their perpetuation. This was the first predator/prey relationship.

As life has evolved into the complex web of interdependent forms we are now familiar with, other relationships besides predator/prey were established. Symbiosis, parasitism and mutualism (sexual reproduction is one example) along with predator/prey relations are all consistent with stable and healthy populations of all the species involved. Predators keep prey populations strong by eliminating the sick and weak. Even parasites rarely destroy a species, for they are dependent of the host’s survival for their own. While there are occasional imbalances in a wild, non-human-affected ecosystem, the dominant mode of existence is dynamic steady state.

Thus life evolved and continued over millions of ‘ears, each being woven into a tension net of all the others, each being adapting to the pull of all the others by developing its own kind of strength. This state of nature was called the “war of all against all” by Hobbes, the 17^th century apologist for the evils of the political state. Hobbes called the state Leviathan, the eater of men, but it was preferable to existing in nature.

To domesticate is “to train to be of use to man” (American Heritage Dictionary). In the relationship between the domesticator and domesticated, only the domesticator benefits. Living beings naturally have self-centered value systens. The purpose of each being is to ensure its own survival, reproduction and longevity. A being that is domesticated by man, has been seduced or coerced to exchange all its freedoms in reproduction and lifestyle for the bare security of the barnyard (prison). Man can then add

the energy these beings would

their own flourishment to ation.

Trie beings domesticated by plants and other humans.

his

man

normally apply to

in the round dance of life, knows only the laws of daily vival—food is good, pain is It is bred for submission.

ll>« /Domwlirl

The task slightly

own increase and domin-animals.

include animals.

There is no difference be-

tween human slavery and the domestication of animals Human slavery could rightly be called domestication, and animal domestication, slavery. Exploitation is the hallmark of civilization, yet it is very important to note that not all humans are equally involved. Most people are not primarily domesticators, but domesticated.

It sur-bad.

of domesticating people is more complex than that of Sometimes circuses must

be provided as well as bread. The circus even becomes very elaborate, a mass spectacle that deludes us into thinking we are living, not merely

“surviving. You know the slogans: “7–11, where you have freedom of choice!” “A revolution in savings!” “Oh, what a feeling...”

Humans are the only animal to attempt to break out of the web of mutual support. Humans are the only animals that have used technology to domesticate other beings. It is the use of technology for domestication, not just technology alone that really separates us from nature. Certain animals have been known to use simple tools and ants have been observed taking slaves, but no other creatures have appropriated the lives of others on the scale that humans have.

In the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Frederick Engels traces the roots of capitalism and domination to the beginnings of perceived ownership by men of women and children. History is his-story, the story of the increasing sphere of domestic control exerted by a proportionally decreasing cadre of men in power. The first definitions of culture in the American Heritage Dictionary have to do with “the tillage of soil” and “the breeding of animals.” “Social and intellectual formation” comes next. Culture, then is a technique used in domestication of plants, animals and people. The most effective cultural technique invented so far has been the sheep religion, Christianity, although a newer technique, television, may soon supersede it.

The philosophy of deep ecology has done a good job of analysing the result of man’s attempt to break out of the net of ecology. It predicts that man will fail and perhaps bring the whole net down with him. Deep ecology has not however, addressed the problem of man’s domestication of humans. Anthropocentrism is not the whole of the problem. When looking at modern, industrial culture, it is easy to see the selfish consumerism and anthropocentrism of the masses of people. It is not so easy to see that such

Humans have brought the world to an ecological crisis. However, since blame is to be placed, we must recognize that some humans are much more culpable than others. They are a small minority of the greedy, the powerful, the masters. Deep ecologists talk of individuals reconnecting with nature as the first step to social transformation. But in order for us to be able to comprehend nature, we must be free-from the bonds of all the human slave systems, modern industrial capitalism/communism, feudalism, fake democracy, patriarchy and all other forms of the state.

Don’t be a slave or a stump, revolt before they clearcut you!

eep in the heart of the oldest old growth forest around, life is rich and lush, magical, fanciful, and very.

very inter-related, true stories of elves and fles, voles and all sorts ings emerge. It’s a rare

It’s here that toadstools, truf-of magical be-and beautiful

magic forest) and left him no choice. For you see, this splendid ancient forest and all of the wild beings that dwell therein is being systematically slain by greedy, sap-thirsty cutthroats.

Lou’s unique tale-telling ability unwinds for us the splendor and the horror

forest,

the so-called “salvage timber” in the

there

Islt your town

League (503) 249–2958 or (503) 281–4486

The

mouse disappears and small pellets dot

bar

rain

wanted

The

r pound

and

need your help. Please contact:

Now the great forest

with our own emotions. He calls on us to find

curtains.

the sheets

Lou’s tour having him Siskiyou

sales tour.

We seek participation from people throughout the United States. The success of this rescue expedition depends on local help in organizing events and finding accommodations for the caravan’s activists. To save the ancient forests, we .phi

^H^T W5 CfJCE OJlLDy vex/ MUE H’WWrM.

you H/të SüVJSäTEßEß

This expedition is an effort to raise awareness of the predicament of the Pacific. Northwest’s ancient forests. Like a carpet of green, these beautiful forests orK^ covered the Pacific Northwest, from California’s redwoods to southeast Alaska s Sitka spruce. A century of logging has destroyed all but five to ten percent of these, the Earth’s most biologically-productive forests. Most of the remaining ancient groves are on public lands, our National Forests, where the U.S. Forest Service continues the devastation. At current logging rates, we may have as little as five years to save the old-growth forest ecosystem.

world, on us. of the 1950?

It may be the longest wake in history, but this funeral procession is actually a celebration of iife. When the Ancient Forest Rescue Expedition (AFRE) comes to your town this Spnng, escorting the body of an 800-year-old western Washington Douglas fir tree, you will understand what we are losing as the last great forests are cut. ’

and go out just ^?n’t

wild-eyed story teller named Lou Gold and his (talking) walking stick.

Vca ^i”¹ WE E/E^ 77M/¿5 70 ‘foußsecE /leso

There : us outrage

Leaving Seattle on April 15. the AFRE will visit hundreds of cities and towns from coast to coast through April and May. Accompanying this awesome Douglas fir log will be musicians, speakers, and exhibits, all telling of the great beauty and natural importance of the ancient forests. Rallies in support of the preservation of these endangered remnants of wild America will be held in several cities, including Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. While the expedition will bear a morbid reminder of ongoing ecological destruction, our message is one of hope: “We can save these great forests, and the time is now.” Our task is to build support for a moratorium on the logging of all old-growth forests. Only through their preservation can we stop the habitat ■ loss which threatens many species-such as the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet-with extinction.

The Chicago, matter, primeval Siskiyou

forests on the centuries, all have emerged among them a ’

The great forest is gone and the sergeant is off duty at the He has had too much to drink and will walk home alone through the The gutters are eloquent.

then drops the proverbial bombshell For instance, did you know that HALF world’s forests have been cut since Did you know that 13 BILLION board

wandering minstrel first draws us in and makes us feel part of this fanciful forest

He never wanted to be a cop, he wanted to be a stream.

to pick up moonlight and squander it in eddies never wanted the promotion he requested.

Sliding down rocks would’ve been fine.

THE ANCIENT FOREST RESCUE EXPEDii

The Senator knows and will not tell but the committee is silent when he enters Each member has suffered the same.

and ACT, because, dammit, a choice.

for more information about /1 or 1^ you’re interested in

The Ancient Forest Rescue Expedrtion-gsSSSjiy&^S^ PC Box 2962 Bellingham. WA 98227

7X second page for schedule info^y

or mouse and puts it by the bed Mrs. Hatfield will not speak and flies into the closet if he opens the

what reluctantly, as it is understandably difficult to leave his forest refuge, but evidently his walking stick had a long talk with him, (not an unusual occurance in a

and making a real mess of things while they’re at it. Stopping these salvage is a main motivation for Lou’s current

So, as you can probably tell, this

artist doesn’t leave us to despair.

simply isn’t time for that. He arms

coroner slices open the sergeant’s chest l/^-. death by drowning.

The Senate chamber is full SU but no one will speak.

our own strength

temperate rain forest that has been continuously evolving for 400 million years.

After the last ice age, it became the seed

truth be known, Lou is from but somehow that doesn’t seem to His heart is deeply rooted in that wonderland known as the Klamath/ Mountain Range. He comes to us some-

Every ornithologist on the East Coast is on vacation or will not answer the phone.

Each day now the Senator goes home with a rabbit

in a way that we won’t soon forget. He unfolds for us some fascinating inter-relationships on which the survival of the whole old growth forest depends.

Briefly it goes that the foundation of the old growth forest is the mycorhizal fungus, the fruit of which is a truffle. The red-backed vole, who eats and poops only truffles, is the main transportation system for the fungus on which the forest depends. Sequentially, the red-backed vole is the main diet of the spotted owl, that “million dollar bird,” which, as you probably know, may soon become a major “bargainig chip” for environmentalists suffering the problem in courts of law.

He also explains how the vole is a fire insurance policy for the forest, as the my-

they gush like an opera he saw in college. The water stands at the metal gates and gathers up the light from the lamppost. The sergeant starts to cry at the falling water

bank for all the coniferous west coast. Throughout the sorts of mystical creatures from this ancient woodland,

There are not enough rodents in Washington, U there are not enough tall trees, . | the wives are dying.

First they must vote on cancer, and then on crime.

But no one will walk to the podium.

flock of pigeons flies by the latticed windows and every head follows the flight..-

Now the great forest is gone ’

and the nation is silent.

The builders will not hammer or saw, ,\’/i’ sob in the streets outside of the buildings^ J Pickpockets will not steal

and Judges crouch behind the bench

with their fists at the strict courtroom floors The farmers see no use for wheat

the truckers sit naked on the black asphalt. i’-

/ There are no ornithologists in Congress. \ Senator Hatfield goes home to a wife who was never a bird.

The Capitol halls are empty, the maids sweep the floor in a dim light troubled by wingbeats.

They keep missing spots and must return, <2’^ but each time there is sawdust where they swept. ‘ The Senator wakes up at four and cannot sleep.

His wife lies curled up under blankets beside him.

He slips out of the room, out of the town house into the chilly Virginia air and picks up the paper.

In the kitchen he heats up coffee and opens it up. ^ But today it is blank, there is no news, ‘ , ‘ just neatly folded paper, with leaves and roots fresh from his state. The coffee is blood. — ■

feet (read clearcauts) will be cut next year in the national forests alone? Do you know that tax dollars have subsidized 343,000 miles of roads through the forests, (that’s three times around the world) or that the USFS is THE LARGEST road building company in the world?

“But we’re creating jobs!!” the timber beasts cry. Bullshit, says Lou. In the last 10 years, cutting has increased by 10%, but timber employment has decreased by 13%. Due to exportation and mechanization, the liars are destroying more and employing less. In addition, the high-tech methods of logging are becoming increasingly destructive.

It’s not a pretty picture... but this

Now the great forest is fallen and shipped to Japan for chopsticks. At night the rain pools in the cracks on the stumps. At dawn a strange sun touches the naked ferns, the coroner spreads open the genitals, test tubes ready. • -;.. It appears foul play is unusually foul.

But where are the birds? The sergeant doesn’t know \ and it is not his job. ‘ <i’

corhizal fungus ves up ’Fb 80 days in the intestines of the vole. This becomes an important issue, for as you may know, the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains were heavily affected by the fires of 1987. Consequently, the forest Service is selling off (cheap!) all

It was a kicking, biting, scratching free-for-all

— POLITICIAN MAULED BY VENGEFUL PACK !!

A PACK OF WOLVES HELL-SENT OU HUMER BRUTALLY BIT AND MAULED THE ENVIRONMENT MINISTER LAST WEEK WHILE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN CLAIMS WOLVES SPEAK TO HER DURING TRANCE.

In late December the British Columbia Ministry of Environment announced that the controversial helicopter wolf wipe-out in Northeast B.C. had been cancelled as being unnecessary since “predator and prey are in balance”—as a result of their years of meddling, of course. This is good news for wolf lovers (and wolves!) who had been planning another round of confrontation with the state’s hired guns in the frigid outback of the Muskwa River region this winter. According to the newspaper reports, the kill “may not be necessary for the next four years.” Does this mean we win?

“IT WAS V1SCI0US, JUST AWFUL,” SAYS CLAUDIA JAILBAIT, THE MINISTER’S SECRET MISTRESS AND WITNESS TO THE ATTACK. “HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A WOLF EAT A HUMAN?” SHE GRIMMACED.

For those new to this issue: In 1984 Project Wolf was organized in an effort to stop the planned massacre of hundreds of wolves in the Kechika and Muskwa River valleys. Over a couple-week period they

braved hostile redneck locals freezing temperatures in town bush using various methods to the issue. Though few actual

and sub-and in the publicize direct con-

frontations took place, the extensive media coverage brought wolf killing into the public’s eye and more than anything horribly embarrassed the Ministry. The next year many members of the original team repeated the protest, this time venturing deep into the wilderness. The media, however, had lost interest and little coverage was gained, making efforts less

THE CAPTION ON THE PLAQUE READS: “TO OUR GLORIOUS DEAD”

by Mikal effective since much of this battle centers around (I hate to say it) who can put on the best circus act and P.R. show. For various reasons the kill was temporarily called off the next winter.

THE AND ERN ST.

ATTACK OCCURED AS STRACHAN JAILBAIT LEFT THEIR NORTHLIGHTS MOTEL ROOM IN FORT

JOHN. “1 STILL HAVE

NIGHTMARES ABOUT IT,ⁿ CRINGED PERFORMER STEVE LAU, WHO WAS ALSO BITTEN SAVAGELY. “EVERYTHING BAD 1 EVER HEARD ABOUT WOLVES JUST CAME TRUE IN FORT ST. JOHN, B.C.” HE SAID.

The “reasons” for the wolf kill are many—mostly political/economic—and have been described in grueling detail elsewhere. But, briefly, it goes something like this: a small cadre of professional hunting guides and outfitters in the NE want wolves removed to help artificially increase the ungulate populations (stone sheep, moose, etc.) for their clients—mostly wealthy Germans and Americans. So, the B.C. government, enlightened as they are, decided that offing wolves with semiautomatic weapons from helicopters would be the most expedient way to give the Hunting Lobby another subsidy. And this is exactly what they planned to do again last winter (87’88).

In response, Wolf Action Group and Friends of the Wolf waged a continent-wide publicity campaign to bring attention to the wolves’ plight and pressure the Environment Ministry to change its mind. Tourism boycotts, protests at Canadian Consulates and B.C. Tourism Bureau offices across the U.S., letter writing, demonstrations at the U.S./Canada Border and similar activities continued from November to March. Protests and publicity events took place around Canada and in Britian and Portugal as well. The efforts culminated when 16 wolf defenders drove the two days up to Fort St. John from Washington state to confront the Ministry in the heart of enemy territory. Daily demos, an office occu-

story) took the initiative and travelled to the NE, staging protests all along the way. By going up before the kill was even announced, the reasoning went, the threat of intervention would be given credibility and this alone would provide an effective deterent.

BUT WILHELMINA MOOSEPUNCH, FAMED PSYCHIC AND RODEO QUEEN KNOWS OTHERWISE. “THEY TALK THROUGH ME WHEN THE MOON IS FULL,” SHE SAYS. “IT WAS REVENGE, PURE AND SIMPLE FOR BRUCE’S YEARS OF WOLF KILLING.”

Following the two weeks up north, the group split: some went to the Calgary Olympics to protest and gain publicity; others stayed in the backcountry; the rest went to Victoria and occupied the Environment Minister’s office (another long story). That afternoon, the beginning of the wolf kill was announced to the press.

In marked contrast to its earlier statements, the Ministry came across as very equivocal, almost apologetic about the whole thing. The number of wolves to be killed had been reduced from 200 down to 54—still unacceptable, of course. The government was obviously trying to save face after being hit with so many mudballs. They needed a way to give-in without looking defeated. They wanted to win on their terms, not ours. Appearances, after

all er. and was

are of utmost importance to those in pow-Three days after the kill was announced—

with as yet no dead wolves—the program cancelled for the year “due to poor weath-

STRACHAN, FROM HIS HOSPITAL BED, COULD FIND NO MOTIVE FOR THE ATTACK. “I’M REALLY A NICE PERSON,” HE CLAIMED.

pation, an Alaska Highway base-

camp were week this

and back-country forays all undertaken over a twoperiod. (The stories from adventure could fill pages

themselves. Alas, they must be left for campfire story time.) Later, three members of Friends of the Wolf parachuted into the ⁿ°”»h«« backcountry to gain publicity and confront

and

But

the the “We

document any wolf killing taking place, there wasn’t any.

In October 1987, the statements from Ministry about their intention to resume aerial kill took on an ominous tone, plan to go ahead with the program no mat-how great the protest,” said a B.C. offi-

cial in one newspaper article. But by midFebruary the kill had yet to begin and the Ministry’s PR people were waffling. The protests and direct action were achieving their intended effect. Tired of waiting for the Ministry to make up its mind, WAG (aka Super Bad Friends of the Wolf—but that’s another

er and snow conditions (necessary for tracking wolves from the air).” Shortly afterwards, Friends of the Wolf was granted an injunction against the Ministry in the B.C. courts. Apparently the Minister had made a procedural error in the way the kill was being conducted. There are no laws protecting wolves in B.C. Not suprisingly, all focus shifted to this glorious legal “victory.”

ACCORDING TO ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY EXPERT RALPH ARCHIBALD, THERE HAS BEEN A HISTORY OF WOLF ATTACKS NEAR FT.ST. JOHN, INCLUDING:

—A YOUNG MS. RIDINGHOOD’S GRANDMOTHER WAS KILLED IN HER BED IN 1895.

— A WOLF BLEW DOWN A BARN AND ATE 5 LITTLE PIGS IN 1942.

— GROWLING PACKS—SOMETIMES IN THE THOUSANDS—HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO STEAL SMALL CHILDREN IN ORDER TO RAISE THEM AS THEIR OWN.

— IN 1951 WOLVES KIDNAPPED YOUNG VIRGINS IN FORT NELSON AND FORT ST. JOHN AND MATED WITH THEM TO PRODUCE A RACE OF WEREWOLVES.

---

I say “not surprisingly” only because history is so predictable, once you locate a few of its ciphers. Patterns begin to emerge, each one different in appearance, but so much the same in effect. Judging from the statements and actions of the Ministry vis-a-vis the protests, the reasons no wolves died in the Muskwa last winter are obvious: political and social pressure generated by direct ac-

would it have saved any this year since the Ministry “tidied up (their) legislation”, as they put it, and have managed to circumvent any constraints the court ruling may have placed. Again, the courts saved no wolves. The legalism did, however, have other effects.

Once the court had ruled in “our” favor, all public attention focussed there. Even many of those who had been in the thick of the action became mesmerized, enthralled by the tidbit of power so temporarily bestowed upon them. Mainstream wolf groups upheld the great court victory while not even mentioning

“WE THINK THE VESCENDENTS OF THESE HUMAN WOLVES MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MAULING,” SAYS JIM WALKER, NOTEV SATANISM AND UFO AUTHORITY AND RESEARCHER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY.

the direct action or the fact that had we all waited for the courts, the wolf killing season would have come and gone (and 200+ wolves been killed)before the case was ever heard!

HOWEVER SMALL, HOWEVER INSIGNIFICANT IT MAY SEEM, ANY ACTION WHICH DOES NOT SEEK A “MEDIATOR”, WHICH EXCLUDES THE LOGIC OF DIALOGUE, IS A POTENTIAL DANGER TO THE STATUS QUO, NOT ONLY OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM,

BUT ALSO OF THE OFFICIAL MENTAL)MOVEMENT.”

(ENVIRON-

---

That the state and those a niche for themselves within and therefore must uphold its

who’ve created its entrails— logic—would

find a way to negate and subvert a victory of this sort comes, again, as no suprise. Authority will always attempt to “recuperate” (co-opt, appropriate for its own benefit) any threat to the continued obedience and passivity of its subjects. This process is the history of the decline of one after another radical group, uprising, movement and revolt. It’s as old as power itself—but you’d think we would’ve learned something by now.

Apparently not. With a stroke of a pen, that judge re-legitimized her and the Ministry’s “right” to determine the fate of wolves after we’d removed that power from them. By playing their game, we gave them an easy victory: we stopped the kill, but the system got all the credit. But does it matter, really? Without belaboring it much further, I ask these questions: Had we kept the victory squarely in the hands of direct action, what would all those mainline liberal reform environmental groups’ newsletters have to talk about instead of how good the legal system

is? What effect will this talk of “court victories” have when we try money for the next round of direct Who gets to claim victory and thus coffers filled by supporters? How

false to raise action? get their does this

make us feel? In other own abilities hands that we

words, are we so afraid of our to wrest the world from evil need the state to tell us and

“the public” that we are right? Do we have no more self confidence than this? Simply from a single-issue stand—saving the wolves— it should be obvious that all the legalistic motions likely hindered present and future

efforts, or, at best, were a waste of time and money. Dollars spent on lawyers could be much better spent attacking the real problem. The truly obscene part, though, is watching while groups and individuals who refused to support our (effective, wolf saving) direct action now claim a great victory for themselves in the name of a battle they never fought.

We’d love to take credit for stopping this year’s aerial kill, but it’s really hard to say this time. Certainly the renewed promise of a W.A.G. ’89 backed by last year’s actions as a reminder helped. Indeed, mere preparations for resistance can often constitute a functional deterent. We did let them know how we felt. In the Fall there were a few Consulate demos and border leafletting and in December, 13 of us hopped the ferry to Victoria and spent the day informing bureaucrats of our intentions. Four spent an

MOOSEPUNCH DISAGREES AND ADDS, “NO POLITICIAN WILL EVER BE ABLE TO SLEEP WITHOUT KNOWING THAT A WOLF IS SOMEWHERE NEAR THEIR VOOR. IT’S GOING TO BE A BLOOVBATH... THEY’VE TOLV ME SO.”

extra day there, hanging banners, leafleting, stickering and enjoying a few activist perks along the way (another campfire story).

The next possibly

The

day the kill was announced as off— for four years...

WELL, SORT OF...

wolf kill continues: trapping, poi-

soning, poaching, legal permit hunting, “nuisance control” hunts, habitat destruction.

However none of these are so focussed or dramatic as the helicopter kill and thus present little in the way of targets for direct interference. Only trapping has any real possibilities and even this will -be quite difficult to track down. But were working on it!

EITHER WAY, ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY BIOLOGIST JOHN ELLIOT IS LEAVING A MASSIVE WOLF ERADICATION EXPEDITION TO THE NORTHEAST. “WE’RE NOT SURE WHICH PACK DIV IT,” SAYS ELLIOT, “BUT OUR POLICY IS ‘WHEN IN VOUBT, WIPE THEM OUT.’”

Meanwhile, a happy wolf story, this one from Trudy Frisk, longtime wolf activist from B.C.

New Year’s Eve just past, a female biologist from the University of Montana is flying over the Canadian Flathead region. She spots a wolf in a trap. No place to land. She is forced to return to Helena and land there. She tries to call Canadian wildlife officials to help the wolf. It’s New Year’s Eve and no help is forthcoming. So she loads into a truck, some gear, a snowmobile, and a friend and sets off north across the border. Eventually she arrives at the ranch on whose property the trapped wolf is. The rancher is far into celebrating and cannot communicate, but his wife, still upright, agrees that there is no problem with people going out on their property fo find and help the wolf. They reach the wolf by snowmobile. It is almost dead of hypothermia. Only one thing to do, they zip their sleeping bags together around the wolf (after freeing it from the trap) and climb in beside it to warm it up.

After a long time it rouses. They leap out of the sleeping bag. So, after performing several messy natural functions inside

the bags, does the wolf.

edge of the clearing, looks back.

It lopes to the

and howls!

JUSTIFIED ACTIVITY?

The B.C. Tourism Bureau office in downtown San Francisco was hit by wolf defenders who broke windows and spray-painted anti-wolf-kill slogans. The Bureau issued a press release denouncing the activity as “an unjustified response since the aerial kill had just been cancelled the previous day. And what if the kill hadn’t been cancelled...?

IOCENTRISM:

ideology against nature by Mikai

That humanity is somehow ‘out of balance’ with nature is hardly a topic of controversy nowadays. There is little question that humans are fouling the world to the point of suicide for us and mass extinction for all other life. To claim otherwise is ludicrous. In a variety of ways, people have attempted to grasp the problem, define it, and seek solutions. Of the many new and more faddish results, few have been as popular as Deep Ecology — also known as Biocentrism — the view that humans are acting out of excessive human-centredness (anthropocentrism) and thus destroying the planet and the rest of the species which have just as much ‘intrinsic right’ to live out their biological destiny as we do. Accordingly, Biocentrism (life/earth/nature centredness) calls for a new way of acting. Specifically, it calls for ‘earth-centred’ activity and thinking — putting the ‘earth first’ (instead of putting ourselves first) as a way out of the global dilemma.

In the following rant I wish to take a critical look at these assertions and show them for what I believe to be false, misleading and even counter-productive. I don’t mean this to be a sermon or some statement of absolute truth. No way!

What follows is, more than anything else, just my initial attempt at deciphering and understanding the relationships between some types of ideas and activity that I’ve discovered to be true to the best of my experience. The points I take on here, and their broader implications, have been of central importance to many of the great disputes and inconsistencies within what can loosely be called the ‘radical ecology movement’. Hopefully, my efforts here will help to encourage further discussion.

According to its proponents, Biocentrism is nature-centred living. It therefore must be premised on an irreconcilable separation of humans and nature. This is so because if humans were inherently natural beings — i.e: an equal part of nature, fully integrated into the natural flow of life — then to be human-centred (anthropocentric) would also imply being nature-centred (biocentric). But Biocentrism has already been defined by its practitioners to be the opposite of Anthropocentrism. So, according to Biocentrist thought (nature-centred philosophy) humans are irredeemably estranged from nature — or were never part of it in the first place — because ‘human’ is posited as the opposite of ‘nature’ (Anthropocentrism versus Biocentrism). Oddly, Anthropocentrism implies the very same thing. If Anthropocentrism is human-centred living and this is the opposite of Biocentrism, or nature-centred living, then once again, ‘human’ and ‘nature’ are opposite and therefore separate. It is a contradiction to say that two positions which are identical are, in fact, opposite. I will try to resolve this dilemma by going outside of what is common to both Biocentrism and Anthropocentrism — ideological thinking.

Ideological thinking is false consciousness. In other words, it is ideas and activity which originate elsewhere, outside of our own emotional and intellectual subjectivity, our identity. Ideology is when we mistake others’ thoughts for our own or when our own thoughts become rigid and fossilised and those thoughts come to control us — instead of the other way around. Marxism, all religions, guru cults are all very clear and obvious examples of ideological thinking. The politically correct sacred or official line is what one must adhere to. These ideas and demands on our activity originate not out of our own needs or desires, or ideas or personal lived experience or community, but from outside of us, externally to us. Other examples of ideologically (false) activity include: all political ideologies, ‘causes’ (doing things for ‘the cause’ instead of for our own needs), consumerism (externally created wants and preferences) and philosophies.

Both Biocentrism, and its necessary companion, Anthropocentrism, are ideologies. They both place external demands on our thinking and activity. Biocentrism differs from, say, Marxism, Christianity or the Moonies only in content. In form it is identical. How it differs is that it demands that we act, not according to the politically, morally or guru determined correct line, but to the ‘naturally’ correct one. ‘Nature’ — or an abstract overruling idea-of-nature replaces the guru, Bible or Party doctrines. There is no room in any of these (or any other ideologies) for the vagaries of human wildness, independent thought, activity or desire — or nature. All thought and activity is pre-scribed, determined externally to our human need, desires. At times we may agree with something that is also part of an ideology. But at this point, if it is truly no longer ideological, no longer external, no longer false consciousness, then we need not invoke the label, category, guru, or other ‘authority’ to justify our ideas and activity. In other words, instead of saying “according to the Marxist doctrines...”, or “The Bible says...”, or “Deep Ecology says...”, we would say “I think that...”, “I’ve noticed that...”, “I feel that...”, or “I’m doing this because...”. In this case — authentic, subjective ideas and activity based on our constantly changing needs and desires and always personally checked out against our own everyday lived experience — we can defend and explain our ideas and activity with arguments and examples that we know to be true because we’ve thought about or actually experienced them. (This has been called ‘theory’ — more on that later). In other words, we can claim our ideas as our own.

When we are in the grips of ideological thinking and acting we cannot do this because the ideas are not our own — we did not think, feel or experience them for ourselves. (Ideology, in this way, is administered thought, directed action — more on that later.) Therefore, we cannot argue, explain or justify them ourselves. Instead when someone opposes or challenges our ideology, we must put them into a category — i.e: label them as ‘other’. The label (authority, justification) of the ideologist is then used to justify evasion of any challenge. Some examples are “That’s just Marxism...”, “That’s Violence, we follow the Non-Violence Code...”, “She’s a Humanist...”. Thus, any challenge to an ideology can be dismissed as that of an ‘outsider’ in the eyes of the Party faithful who will all nod their heads in agreement at how clever the ideologist is.

Earlier I referred to ‘theory’. Theory is (to clearly define it at least for the sake of this discussion) the opposite of ideology. Ideology is inside-out theory. In ideological activity, the motivations come from without. With theory, motivations come from within, from our own subjective ideas, experiences, longings and needs. Thus theory can also be called ‘self-theory’. Most people today are walking around inside-out, motivated and directed by a myriad of things — anything but themselves. Theory is never static, never rigid. Our theory, if we fail to constantly evolve and test it against our experience and new information, quickly fossilises into ideological thinking.

When we base our activities and ideas on our self-theory, we can clearly see what the actuality behind new information is and choose to take or leave whatever we want. The self-theorist skips and dances through the great supermarket of ideology, tearing open every package, scattering the contents and appropriating what seems good and nourishing and discarding the rest. The ideologist shops carefully, or even perhaps on impulse, looking for just the right fit of pre-packaged ideas to take home and consume wholeheartedly — after paying at the register of course! Ideologists often are brand switchers. They’ll stick with one package of (non-) thought only until the next one in a shinier package comes along and lures them in. Other ideologists maintain a lifelong brand loyalty!

In the earlier discussion about ideologists using labels to evade challenges, we can say that the self-theorist can easily see — and see past — ideological boundaries of the opponent by watching for examples of ideological thinking such as statements like “Deep Ecology says that...”, “Marxism says that...”, “Gandhi would’ve said that...”. The person under the influence of an ideology, a false consciousness, on the other hand, having constructed these barriers, cannot see out. It has become a wall, a real barrier to advancement, a very un-radical thing to do.

Note also that just as the ideologist isn’t the originator of his/her ideas, so s/he neither claims the credit for them (e.g. “Biocentrism says...”). But here is another example of how the ideologist is mystified. Doctrines, ideologies and the like do not themselves talk and so it is wrong and misleading to say “Biocentrism says...”. Who is Biocentrism? When we begin to ask such questions, we can peel off layers of mystification and confusion like the skin of an onion until we can see what lies beneath: Actually Biocentrism doesn’t say anything. Actual people do and say things such as “Biocentrism this and that...”, not some mystical Biocentrism force or creature. It’s important to uncover the real source of ideas we hold so they can be fully evaluated on their actual content and meaning. If we then really do agree, then we can say “I think this and that...” and the ideas will no longer have control over us. We will control the ideas. Beware the dangers of attributing concrete activity and thinking to abstract concepts or doctrines or slogans.

In response to attacks, the person who engages in ideological thinking and activity simply builds higher and bigger walls. To continue this imagery for a moment longer, we can see that eventually the ideologist will be overwhelmed by the theorist who, being free to think, evaluate and rove around, will eventually find the cracks and weak spots that will bring the whole thing down with little effort. Imagine a guerrilla group with a radical self-theory challenging a monolithic state military force under the grip of a rigid chain of command (external control, ideology). This whole preceding discussion has obvious relevance for anyone engaged in direct subversive resistance — or think they are: ideology creeps up where you’d least expect it. But you can draw you own conclusions on that...

I’ve tried to present a fairly clear and simplified (if not simplistic) picture of what ideological activity is, how it operates and how it can limit us. I’ve tried to contrast that with theory, a better way to understand the world and think and act. What I’ll try to do now is explain how ideology is the death knell of radical change, of humanity, of nature and of the earth and wilderness. I showed at the very beginning how Biocentrism (an ideology, a category of Nature-ally correct thought and activity, a label used to discredit opposing views, an external source of ideas and action, an authority) is premised on the view that humans are separate from nature and act out of human-centeredness (Anthropocentrism) and this is what is destroying the earth. But I also showed that the apparent opposites of Biocentrism and Anthropocentrism both in fact mean the same thing. I said that this dichotomy was resolvable by breaking out of ideological forms of thought. This is what I mean.

I’d like to start with this assertion: Humans are not separate from nature. Our ‘nature’ is that which is most ‘natural’ to us — our deepest needs, desires, dreams, internally defined ideas (self-theory), our emotional wants and expression, our wild, animal instincts. Our human nature is our wild, free animal instinct and subjectivity. This is what is most natural and also what is most human about us since these qualities arise naturally and from within us. ‘Human’ and ‘nature’ are not contradictory, mutually exclusive terms.

Both Biocentrism (life/nature/earth-centred) and Anthropocentrism (human-centrism) mean the same thing, yet one is defined as being opposed to the other. They both are ideologies. They both are external, packaged thought for consumption and directed action. Both have adherents who purport that the ideology must be allowed to do the thinking for us, and that we must act out of motivations it prescribes. Ideological thinking requires that we relinquish our desires, our unpredictability, our ability to change and adapt and submit them to the category, label, doctrine, guru, Bible or, in the case of Biocentrism, to an abstracted Nature; an idea of nature.

When we relinquish our desires and wild animal instincts, we are relinquishing what is most natural, what is most human about us. Ideological thinking (false consciousness, since the thoughts and actions are not our own) is the enemy of nature. It is the enemy of humans because it deprives us of what makes us human — our human nature, our wildness. All authority — since it is ideological, externally imposed — is the enemy of nature and wildness. All domination and obedience kills nature in us, deprives us of our natures by depriving us of our humanity, our dreams, desires and wildness.

This is the mistake of claiming to act or think in the name of something external to us — whether it be Biocentrism, Marxism, Non-Violence, ‘The Cause’, America, Deep Ecology or an abstracted idea of Nature itself. These all kill our unruly, natural wild humanity. To say we are thinking or acting for Deep Ecology of the Earth or Nature or the Spotted Owl is to act for reasons external to us. To do this we must submit our desires to these ideological forms of thought, we must suppress our wildness, individuality — our nature. What a bizarre circumstance, to be risking injury or imprisonment to defend an idea of nature while killing the real living nature in ourselves! Of course, if you are doing/thinking those things for yourself and not killing wildness, not killing nature, not involved in ideological activity, them there is no reason to invoke labels as justifications. Be able to say: “I’m doing this out of my own desires for wildness, for my own human nature (or whatever).” And herein lies the way out of the contradiction.

Both Biocentrism and Anthropocentrism are ideologies and therefore anti-nature. If we act out of Biocentrism we are actually killing our nature, not being nature-centred. If we act out of Anthropocentrism, we are not acting out of our human-centred desires and wild animal instincts. We are acting out of ideological demands. So, Biocentrism is anti-nature and Anthropocentrism is anti-human! So they are both anti-human and anti-nature.

So, big deal? But this becomes critical when we see that it is this same mode of self-denial or self-repression of wildness that allows us to do anti-human activity and anti-nature activity in this society. Biocentrism (and all ideologies), therefore, reinforces this precondition, reinforces our domestication. The actual daily activity, the dominant mode of human existence on the earth today is mislabelled by the Biocentrists. It is not Anthropocentrism, not human-centred. It is not done to meet human needs, not done as a result of the fulfilment of wild human desires. This activity is done to fulfil the needs of power and capital, nation-states and commodity-exchange, the whole military-industrial-national-empire. It should rightly be called production-centred or power-centred or death-centred since we must kill our wild natures to be part of it. Our daily activity is done to keep this ‘Machine’ running. This Machine is what is devouring the earth, nature, wilderness and humanity. To work in the entrails of this ‘leviathan’ requires that we submit all our wildness to the needs, schedules and routines of it. On a daily basis, this is how we individually kill our desire for our nature, our wildness.

To do this, to suppress our own wild, human, animal instincts, we must put on successively think layers of emotional ‘armour’ to protect ourselves from the pain of a murdered nature trying to break through. Like asphalt and herbicide to keep the wild plants from destroying the roadbed, this armour must be constantly added to or it begins to fall away. This armour can also be thought of as the internalisation of the Machine, its logic and schedules. Eventually the armour can be mistaken for what it is suppressing in the same way that so many people today mistake concrete, machinery and media images for the real world. This is the success of the system, the goal of our education, the triumph of Domestication over Wilderness.

It is only such armoured beings, domesticated humans who have internalised the Machine, that would engage in self-destructive/nature-destructive activity. Herein lies the danger of all modes of ideological (pseudo) awareness and activity (of which Biocentrism is but one of many, many). By encouraging us to follow that which is external to us, that which negates our own human wildness and desires, these ways of thinking and acting, help build our emotional armour against nature! They encourage self-repression and domestication. Ideology causes us to further distrust our wild natural instincts to be free. In this way, we are more able to destroy the world while at the same time we are that much less able to transcend and break free from this very mode of destructive behaviour.

What is needed is a subjective, critical, internal-human-nature-centred type of ‘self-theory’ that helps us peel away the mystification surrounding our relation to ourselves, our world and our daily activity. We need to see domestication and suppression of wilderness and freedom clearly and without illusions before we can begin the wild, liberatory celebration of our nature, the creation of planetary wilderness and the pitiless annihilation of everything which stands in the way.

BEYOND EARTH FIRST!

toward a feral revolution of desire

by Feral Faun

Last year, Fifth Estate published a critique of Deep Ecology which included criticisms of certain people who use the slogan “Earth First!”. This has led to a fairly intense dialogue. As I have read this dialogue it has become clear to me that most people—including those who call themselves EF!ers-aren’t really sure what EF! is.

A number of letters and one article (“‘Live Wild or Die’—The Other Earth First!,” Fifth Estate, Vol.23, #3) attempted to show that EF! was not monolithic, that it was a movement rather than an organization. Yet the writers of these pieces spoke of “what EF! actually does” and, in the article, of EF!’s “split personality”—as though EF! were indeed a single entity, a monolithic organization. To clear this up, it is necessary to figure out just what EF! is.

There is an EF! that is an organization. This is what Mikal called the “centralized personality” of Earth First! in his FE article. This EF! consists of the editorial staff of the national paper and the “stars” of EF! They create a major portion of the public image of what EF! is all about. And their recent right-wing Malthusian ravings have not helped that image one bit.

There is another Earth First!—however that EF! is not a movement. The real movement is an anti-authoritarian, anti-industrial-civilization, pro-wilderness movement, and people of Fifth Estate are as much a part of that movement as anyone else who chooses to use the slogan “Earth First!” To claim that a slogan creates a separate movement with an inside and an outside defined by the use of the slogan is a mystification. As Mikal said in his article, the defining quality of a movement is that it moves. Everyone who is active in any way in opposing civilization and striving to expand wildness is participating in that movement and needs to criticize any part of that movement that is stifling the liberation of wildness.

So what do I think Earth First! is? It is a slogan around which some people rally. Just what this slogan means and why people need it as a rallying point needs to be examined.

“Earth First!,” the slogan is a simple, two word proclamation of biocentrism. Biocentrism is an ideology, an attempt to claim that we can act from a basis other than our own needs, desires and experiences. We cannot put earth first. When we claim to do so, we are only putting our concept of the earth first. Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary have both claimed to have connected with the consciousness of the universe and have used this claim to justify their vision of paradise as a horrendous, sterile techno-topia, saying that is the “natural course of evolution.” I share a vision similar to many EF!ers, but their claim to know the earth’s will is false consciousness, ideology, and all ideology is a threat to wildness.

Why do people so distrust their own instincts and desires that they have to create false consciousness to justify themselves? Why do they need to claim that they are doing what they are doing because they put “Earth First!”? Civilization, with its need to suppress whatever is wild, has taught us to distrust our instincts and desires. It needs to do this in order to channel our wild energies into the domesticated activities of work and commodity consumption— the activities that are destroying wildness everywhere. So the best thing we can do for wilderness is to let our own wildness break free by trusting and acting on our own instincts and desires. To be trapped in the ideology of a slogan is to chain our radical consciousness and to stifle our movement.

By equating the slogan with a movement, speaking of the movement as a monolithic being that acts on its own, defining participation in the movement in terms of use of the slogan rather than people’s activities, the image of EF! as an organization is created whether such an organization actually exists or not. The Tucson crew reinforces this image by creating a visible bureaucracy, but even without them — the image would exist because EF! is spoken of in organizational terms even by those who claim it is not one. So an image has been created which the media can use to create a good guy / bad guy scenario. And thanks to Foreman, Abbey and other EF! stars, the image of a monolithic organization of crackpot, racist eco-terrorists is becoming dominant. Give the press a name and claim that it represents a single movement and they will see an organization there. And when even those who claim that Earth First! is not a monolithic organization speak of it in monolithic, organizational terms, can anything else be expected?

To summarize my thoughts:

1. The slogan, “Earth First!” needs to be left behind because it reflects false consciousness. We always act from our own needs, desires and experiences. When we recognize that in terms of our radical activity, we free that activity from any ideological constraints.

2. The slogan needs to be left behind because it has created an image that allows the media to manipulate the public’s conception of those who act in the slogan’s name.

3. The slogan needs to be left behind because it is associated with the redneck, macho, racist posturings of Abbey, Foreman and others.

4. The slogan needs to be left behind because it creates the image of a movement whose only basis is the use of that slogan, creating an insider/outsider dichotomy that allows “insiders” to write off the criticisms of “outsiders” without giving them much thought.

5. It needs to be recognized that the actual movement, of which those who use the slogan, “EF!” are part, is a movement to save what is wild from civilization. Many of us who have criticized the ideology that has been associated with EF! are active participants in that movement, so our criticisms are not those of outsiders.

6. It needs to be recognized that “Earth First!” is merely a slogan, a rallying cry. It does nothing concrete. Individual people, acting separately or together, are the ones doing things of actual significance. In order to avoid the image of being a monolithic organization, we have to be careful to make this clear.

We need to go beyond the false consciousness of the idea, Earth First! and recognize that only by setting our own wild instincts and desires free can wilderness be saved. Ours is a revolution of desire, a feral revolution. We do not do it for anything supposedly greater than ourselves; we do it for ourselves. So, come on, anarchic adventurers, let’s go wild!

PROGRESS?

by Kelpie Willsin

LUST AND POLITICS

(together again)

Advice to the Politically Correct Lovelorn

by Andie Rogenous

Dear Andie,

This year at the RRR a really sexy hippie chick accused me of being sexist! What’s her problem?

-Mystified in Montana

But the bottom line boys, is whatever else be, A man who’s been cut is a hero to me.

Dear Dick for Brains, Dames, who can figure ‘em?

and to more and more women with Earth’s health on her mind, A man that considerate is an incredible find.

Romantic endeavors, I could pursue all night. With a man who’s shown me he’s full of insight, ...and concern for his sisters, and love for the earth. May the Goddess always grant him all that he’s worth.

Dear Andie,

Women are where it’s at, man. I mean like their energy is so connected to Mother Earth, y’know? I feel the need to balance my Yang with some Yin. There isn’t enough woman energy in my life, you know what I mean?

-Sensitive in Southern California

Dear Dick for Brains,

Yes, I think I do know what you mean, the cleaning isn’t getting done, right?

Dear Andie,

I’ve tried acting like a manly man, I’ve tried acting like I’m a sensitive emotional kind of guy (I’ve even tried crying!) Why aren’t women interested in me?

-Confused in the 80’s

Dear Dick for Brains,

Once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.

Confused about love and politics?

Send your questions (serious or otherwise) to Dear Andie Rogenous c/o this paper.

BLOODY CRYSTALS

1-800-828J

say

Behold the Light Energy!

While

trum (Dec

The price(tag) of empower(-over)ment

controlling illegal hun-

spreads

to earthly freedom

O a

Escapism

negates the possibility for real escape

Break, out! !

Why cop-out

peoples’ opiate

as (transnational) capital (punishment) (priced) consciousness pays no interest ...True wilderness has no credit to

1987), when asked about crys

Higher

(global) villagers

are powerful. But maybe are for a reason. Leave

J : had this horrible dream chat in a former life I was something called a Shirley Maclaine

The groovyvilestyle defeats the worthwhile Fight.

(righteous), sight(blind) class white.

Suck it up

them there, where the earth can use them as she sees fit. It is interesting that newage folks, who profess to care for the earth are so blinded by the crystal light that they are destroying what they profess to love. Their crystals are bloody. Does our endlessly raped earth need more of this?

The NFS and the crystal-hungry masses need to hear from environmentalists: crystal mining is yet another massive wounding that our earth doesn’t need. We need to heal ourselves by healing the earth. Boycott crystals If you own them, don’t flaunt them, which encourages others to get them. Let the NFS know that you don’t want them to grant any more crystal mining permits. Let people know that crystals belong to the earth!

tai seekers in the Oucita National Forest and surrounding areas in Arkansas. According to Carmack, people vandalize the area by stealing crystals from legal mines and digging Illegal mines. These all cause erosion. The Forest Service liberally grants crystal miring permits, according to Spectrum, but the fees generated don’t begin to cover the cost of moni-

alienation and capitalism, (nothing)newage (here) mystic channels alien(ation)....(Empty)head-lines proclaim Harmonic Convergence of capitalism and gullibility while (windfall) prophets soar in their new astral (jet) planes Search for sacred (work) places and lost (work) pyramid (schemes) of the contented slave states that he finds True Peace in (extra) strength (over)dose of latest

put your crystals back inside Earth’s veins bleeding wide ! buck-making spiritual raping. It’s embarassing, sickening.

So get off the trip— it’s patriarchal hip hype, the enemy of radical, the mind on sabbatical.

is just sum of the constraints to freedom and wildness. Entrepre(newage)ers worship pyramids (on back of dollar bills)....Sheepish followers, blinded by the worship of christ, switch to crystals but still are stoned on religion wars against nature.... Lost forever in deep spaciness, wanna-be buddhas seeking highest self (-lobotomy) crawl out on a (broken) limb and fall off the Tree of (Carnal) Knowledge.... Computer terminal (lonliness) necessitates New(minimum W-)age labor for Third-World

Feel good, feel right it’s outta And totally middle

.^^/s ^

tering the mines or ters.

Sure, crystals they are where they

loan (spiritual) sharks.... Switch channels till the Price is Right (or leftist)....Ramtha: a hoax aura fraudulent check your premises against lived experience first.... Newage psychics do big business in predicting the future while psychotic Big Businessmen determine it in spite of (or with the help of) passivist peace path(-ology) followers. “Less (action) is More (destruction)”!!.... (Ass-)holism subverting (trust your) desire for relief from higher-(than thou)-archy of (yes, sir!)-vival.

Marriage of (un)consciousness commodities with fragmentary (grenade)desires divorces authentic earthly re-engagement to re-birth still-born possibilities (out of wed-lock and chain)....Hypo-(dermic)—critical non-confrontation in ^ the name (your poison) of spirituality shoots-up the possibility for real transcendence of daily misery.... (Computer) terminal (preppy) hip—get off your trip....

. Responsibility? Action?

Just believe.

You’ll receive miracles (Accept Christ, believe it’s enough, you saved your ass).

Poor folks Choose their destination No need for restitution. Just help yourself. Claim action but don’t take it. Bunch of fuckin’ fake-its

i.’ K*«n’

 

by Karen DeBraal

Crystals. Their shimmering beauty vib-brates deep into your being, helping your being, helping you self-actualize with healing powers and guided imageries. Cool and hip, right? New age and stylin’, yes? But at what price? Well, hell, can a price be put on spirituality? Can a price be put on how the earth feels when her powerful energy transmitters and healers are ripped from her bowels for a profit, be it monetary or spiritual?

The ripping (rip-off) of crystals from the earth is causing her to ulcerate. Great eroding scars result from the crystal hungry hordes scouring the U.S. National Forests (mainly in Arkansas) and areas in other countries, such as Mexico and Brazil. Armed to the teeth with screwdrivers, shovels and bulldozers, new-age hucksters and spiritual profiteers, well-meaning healers and seekers of the sacred are mining and tearing at the earth with no thought of the cost to her. The environmental impact of our spiritually starved, buck-hungry droves is not a consideration.

Think about it. The next time you stroll by Tools for Fools (no kidding) or any other flashy crystal store in Santa Cruz or elsewhere, and see those t.v. sized crystals glimmering in the display window, think about the hole it left when it was wrenched out by its roots, like a bloody wisdom tooth from a gum. And all those smaller ones...they aren’t laying around the forest floor like pine cones.

“It resembles Gold Rush Days,” said Montgomery County Sheriff James Carmack in S^ec-

Behold the Light Energy!

By Mikal

While new rage is tearing down old Wall(Street) of

BLOODY

by Karen DeBraal

It’s liberal, right-on, far-out, cool Wear a crystal, a bag of herbs, join the New Age school (of fools).

Native People Defend Wilderness In B.C

by Mikal

“THIS CASE HASN’T EVEN STARTED YET AND ALREADY WE’VE WON. YOU SHOULD SEE BACK HOME HOW PEOPLE ARE TALKING TO ONE ANOTHER, HOW THEY’RE REALIZING THAT THEY HAVE THEIR OWN CUSTOMS, CULTURE, LANGUAGE, STORIES. IT DOESN’T REALLY

MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN THE COURT ANY MORE. PEOPLE ARE GETTING BACK ON THE LAND...”

(Author’s note: The following information has been compiled from my personal

experiences in Vancouver at and campout, leaflets given conversations, and articles Thus, it is hardly complete

the appeal out there, in No Picnic, but should

provide an adequate intro to the issue. No Picnic is available from: POB 69393 Station K Vancouver, B.C. V5K4W6 CANADA.)

I’ve always hated courtrooms. Now I remember why. Around me and the handful of supporters sit several dozen people of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en Indian nations who have come hundreds of miles from their homeland in order to, in the words of one man, “give the Courts a chance to make the right decision.” What’s being played-out in this courtroom before our eyes and ears is the continuation of the historical process of plunder and genocide set in motion when Christopher Columbus (Christopher = Christoforo = “Christ-Carrier” = the bringer of Christian Civilization to it’s “New World”) first transported the virulent ugliness of Western Civilization to the shores of this then-paradisiacal continent. It is the conflict between human communities enchanted by the timeless cycles of nature and living myth and the anti-nature enterprise of History, Progress and Conquest. I can hardly imagine how difficult and humiliating it must be for these people here in this alien place to be reduced to mere spectators while their future is debated and decided on the basis of Facts, Figures and abstract legalistic terminology. (My difficulty is only a reflection of the lack of real community in industrial society, the lack of any solid frame of reference. Really, our futures are decided in the same manner and by the same people.).

”THEY TELL ME I HAVE NO CULTURE. THEY TELL ME I HAVE NO HERITAGE, THAT VM MT WET’SUWET’EN, TH AT l’M A N0N-PERS0N. WELL I TELL YOU: 1F l’M NOT WET’SUWET’EN, THEN l’M SURE NOT CANADIAN!”

In this court action, the Gitksan Wet’suwet’en are challenging Westar Timber Ltd.‘s appeal of an injuction against logging granted last Fall after people blockaded logging roads and prevented construction of a key bridge over the Babine River. Years previous, on October 23, 1984, 54 hereditary Chiefs launched a land title action against the government of British Columbia in the Supreme Court of B.C., seeking a declaration of continued owner-

ship and jurisdiction over their traditional territory.* It was on the basis of this still-pending case that the injunction was granted, the judge declaring that the GW people should not “be left with a dessert” in the event they won. Westar, who was awarded the “right” to clearcut GW lands, seeks to overturn this decision and begin logging even while the

main

Mouldy of the

title action continues in Vancouver. The Gitksan (People of the Mistv/ River) and Wet’suwet’en (People Lower River) inhabit the North-

western portion of what is now known as B.C. Their traditional territory spans 57,000 square kilometers around the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers where they have lived since time immemorial. Archaelogists (civilization’s apologetic grave robbers) have found one village to have been occupied continuously for over 6,000 years. The people themselves have oral histories describing events that took place hundreds, sometimes even thousands of years ago.

But since the early 1800’s, the land and people have been under sustained attack by the invading European/Christian civilization. Traders, trappers and miners came

first and now logging, large-scale and cultural colonization continue impoverishment of the region. The settlers brought disease as well.

mining the first

In the

second half of the nineteenth century smallpox killed 30% of the Gitksan while other groups fared much worse. This depopulation placed great strains on the traditional rituals and other aspects of community life. Whenever native peoples resisted they were promptly jailed or killed. Their land was systematically expropriated by settlers. The Feast, a traditional ceremony for validating all important transactions within the community, was made illegal and totem poles were declared by missionaries to be objects of Pagan worship. In some places they were cut down. Ceremonial regalia was burned and people were arrested simply for living according to their own rules.

“WESTAR LIKES TO THROW ¿ROUND THE TERM ’IN REALITY.’ THE QUESTION NEVER ASKED LS ’WHOSE REALITY?’”

With all this behind them, it’s somehow not surprising that the govenment’s and Westar’s main line of defense against the Land Title action and the current appeal rests on the assertion that the Ilians have no distinct way of living On the land-i.e., that they’ve been “asst«ii#te4” into modern culture. In order to “prove” this, Mackenzie, the Crown’s lawyer in the title

action and now an advisor to Westar** the appeal, has been snooping around graphing GW Chiefs eating at a pizza riding in cars and the like, to show

in photoparlor, that i

they no longer have a relationship with the land, don’t depend on salmon for sustenance, etc. What a slimy bastard! At one point in the appeal hearings, Westar refers to “use of this land—for hides, fish berries and other traditional uses—’* as past tense.” The audience relates!

a collective groan—they personal otherwise. At the day’s-end debrg

r knew

•Sihen S

one person stands CO conaaent that foreigners who have never see« the land buy it up from the Provincial-gwaar™cr. it’s called ‘a good investment.’ P

taent

‘

Indians do not use their land for seasons, it’s called ‘abandoned.’

But whett

a few

Telli

your relatives, friends and children: on the land. Teach them to protect th ......... land.” Another statement Chis day seems to sum-up the character df the whole court S show. “Westar likes to throw around the term ‘in reality.’ The question never asked is ‘whose reality?”’

For over 100 years, the Province of B.C. has refused to negotiate 1 a rid title |m settlements with any otgthe aboriglri^&g”” peoples of B.C. It is important CO note that there is a big difference between a “land claim” and a “title action.” A land claim gives the Natives use, occupancy and monetary compensation. Colonialist laws, ownership and authority remain.

Title to the land will give the GW ownership and complete jurisdiction.

However, the GW seem to have no illusions about the role such court actions play: “If we put all our eggs in this basket (the courts) then we’ll always be stuck on the reserve. This Court is only a small, small part of who we are and what we do. They can choose to accept that or not. But if they don’t, it’s their problem. We’re

(Wyget--pronounced wee-GET--tt, a centrat character in the Wyget Legends o^ the Gitksan Wet’¿uwet’en. Court doings kept everyone quite buty ¿0 I never got the whote ¿tory but I hope to by next ■ittue. Lawyers in B.C. courts wear thete bitty bow tie* tike Wyget ¿6 wearing above--realty archaic.)

WHEN THE FISHERIES COPS CAME UP THE RIVER FOR THE BIG THEY OPENEV FIRE ON THEM MARSHMALLOWS ANV CONTINUED

MOTORING BUST

WITH PELTING

THEM UNTIL THEY RETREATED.

going to stop all activity, ail logging and mining on the territory.” Indeed, throughout the three-day hearing talk of direct action is common. It is also nothing new. Besides the Babine blockade there have been others as well. In another action, the Hereditary Chiefs ordered the Tribal Council*** to confiscate logging equipment on Luulak (Frog) Territory— which they did. The RCMP showed up in force and took it back. Another time, the Federal Ministry of Wildlife and Fisheries tried to cut down on the GW salmon catch (the GW only take 1% of the run. Commercial and sport fisheries take the majority) and declared that all boats and nets would be confiscated if people con-tia«S^‘to fish—which they did. When the ^TT-armed Fisheries cops came motoring ^Tthe river for the big bust, the fishers, prepared in advance, opened fire on them ^ith marshmallows and continued pelting ^he cops till they retreated. Two were later arrested and charged with assault

^1 Barshmallows, ÍJ^píd in court.

only to have the charges

rings will go for two decision won’t be reached So, for now, we are

caBj>iag-ou£ <ni Cb« steps of the Law Courts Un Vancouver to 4&& solidarity and pub-Iglid^l case. ‘ We have two big oil drums ‘for our urban campfires and several tents are set up on tl^^oncrete. Someone brings J and armload of bricks... “For the windows?” a voice pipes-up hopefully. Alas, these are only to hold down the tent. People come and go but at least a dozen remain at any time. Thery.is a pan of a sort

ggof traditional Indian frybread and other

ats that we

ambers of the

Lytton and Mt. Currie Bands from near the H^in Valley (another <l#èct action site — etay tuned) are here to show their support for the GW struggle. “They’ve consistently supported US. They’ve been brothers to us.” It is Bestly the younger people who are here tonight—the elders are at a hotel. For many of the older people, the beginning of the trial a year ago was their first exposure to a city and they consistently despÎSè it. To them it is an ugly, inhuman way to exist. And they’re right! It must be only our seemingly permanent proximity and immersion in civilo-industrialism that

”WHAT WE KNOW AS EVIDENCE, WHAT WE KNOW AS LAVS—THAT’S TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM WHITE MAN’S LAW ”

Penan Busted!

by Francisca

The Penan are an indigenous tribe living in the rainforests of Malaysia. For the last couple years they have been blockading logging that threatens to completely destroy their traditional way of life by removing the forest around them. This encroachment of civilization has been resisted by blockades, barricades of brush and logs, and more recently, by burning down bridges on logging roads. There have already been many arrests as well as support protests at Malaysian consulates and other targets all over the world. This following report, dated January 19, ’89, comes from the Rainforest Information Center (POB 368 Lismore, N.S.W. 2480, Australia).

12^th January, 16 Penan arrested, detained without rights.

14^th January, 8 Penan arrested, detained without rights.

15^th January, 57 Penan arrested, no information available.

All have been charged under the new forestry ordinance which allows anyone found obstructing logging operations to be arrested with penalties of up to two years in jail and fines of M$5,000.

The Penan arrested on the 12^th are being held under a fourteen day detention order, supposedly to assist the police in gathering evidence. During this time the Penan can have no contact with a lawyer or their families. Blockading tribals who have been held under a detention order in the past have been beaten, given minimal or no food, kept in cramped conditions (up to 15 in a cell designed for 4) and without blankets or mattresses.

Mr. Leo Chai, State Director of the Forest Service commenting on the recent arrests said that the Penan are very stubborn and “are being taught a lesson.”

The recent spate of arrests started in late November last year, with police moving in to arrest tribals at blockades that had been set up in October. Kelabit and Penan in the Lim-bang River region were arrested. On December 10, international human rights day, another 12 Penan were arrested at blockades on the Baram River.

Now in some Penan settlements there are only women and children left; all the men have been arrested. The spirit of the blockading tribes is said to be strong but they obviously cannot stand this kind of attack on their way of

longer.

Supporters in Malaysia have asked that we all w.ite immediately to Malaysian authorities expressing in the strongest possible polite terms the obligation the Malaysian Government has to honour and protect the rights of its tribal people to their traditional lands, write to:

YAB Datuk Patinggai Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud Chief Minister of Sarawak, The Chief Minister’s Office, 93502 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.

His Excellency Tan Sri Zakaria Bin Mahmud Ali High Commissioner,

Malaysian High Commission 7 Perth Ave,

Yarralumla ACT 2600

A boycott of all Malaysian products has been called—especially tropical hardwoods. The Penan will need money for legal expenses in the coming months. Donations can be sent to R.I.C. and earmarked for the Penan (unlike at most “environmental” groups, money sent to the Rainforest Information Center wont be

used to feed a bloated bureaucracy. It’s one of the very few places that I would personally advocate sending money to. —mikal)

There will likely be demonstrations in the near future in support of the Penan. For more info contact EF! Rainforest Action, pob 83, Canyon, CA 94516 (415) 376–7329. If you’ve got the time, you might check around for the nearest Malaysian Consulate and pay them a midnight visit —

TERMINAL BOREDOM?

KNOW THESE SYMPTOMS:

Glazed, expressionless eyes; dizziness; clammy skin; dull, “turnip-like” personality; chronic sense of loneliness and isolation.

Victim often develops propensity to wander away from work place. Absenteeism and tardiness common in advanced cases. Victim may experience irrepressible longings for human closeness and communication. Some sufferers may stop work and daydream about dancing nude on the beach or running with wolves through the forest. In some extreme cases. Che Terminally Bored have been known to smash computers, physically assault bosses and burn down factories and offices.

uve wiivᵢAₗₜᵢmuni

Scorpion, Centrum id a eculpturaiuo (Length 2 to3 in.)

rSOME THOUGHTS

ON SCAMMING by Toby

or us who desire the dismantling of industrial culture, it makes no sense to be peddling away at the treadmill while we’re trying to put monkeywrenches in it. If we work, not only do we help lubricate the global pillage machine but, what’s worse, we have no time or energy to fight it. By finding the blind spots in the system we can skim off enough to provide for our survival needs without contributing our efforts to further Progress. Of course, this presumes the view that the current global order is wretched, ugly and rotten to the core, that it is obscene in its totality. For those who wish only a switching of masks, a new set of bosses, a human-scale-ization of industry, power and technology or a reform of any sort, this will seem like nothing more than petty parasitism and cheating instead of calculated political activity. Oh, well.

When we come to see that the daily activity of working and consuming is what produces and expands the system of plunder, this opens up another possibility for action: subversion at work. This activity is qualitative light-

years distant from the false notion of “working within the system.” In that case the only result can be co-option of any real attempt at change. Usually, it is a means to insure its adherents a piece of the economic and political pie; genuine work resistance aims to raze the bakery.

Scams must be kept in perspective. It’s all to easy to let our efforts at subversion become our frame of reference, the very center of our activity and vision. In this circumstance, we still have not left the confines of

There are at least as many possibilities for subversion in the workplace as there are people at work. Theft, equipment sabotage, doing your own thing at work, slacking and “redistributing the wealth” (giving things away) are some of the more obvious techniques that can be done by those who’s life situation demands a steady income but who don’t wish to grease the wheels. We needn’t feel at all guilty about resisting an awful, exploitative society that is imposed on us by force. We have no responsibility to it, no obligations and no need to apologize.

the industrial mega-machine, just accomodated ourselves to it. However adept we become at skimming-off our part of the pie (still always better than working for the system to get it), we are still only satellites of the Bakery—vultures looking for crumbs, we still have not created an alternative. When all daily needs are met by scams, the emptiness of mere survival becomes

even colder; it becomes obvious that for all our efforts the world is still an ugly place. It’s not that we can’t imagine alternatives, but insofar as it is the system itself that prohibits the realization of those alternatives, scamming Is the only real alternative open to us. It is only some consolation that our lives weren’t spent building it for the Boss. So, subvert, rip-off, scam, steal and fuck-up as much as possible. But beware the dangers of mistaking this activity for real living. We need to steal back the whole world, not just the scraps.

NICK IT!

by Nickette

What if I had are wondering

walk out of the store with a block of cheese in my pocket and your eyebrows raise in question. I already know your thoughts.

gotten caught? You if it’s right to steal.

Just what does shoplifting have to do with saving the world, after all?

Well, my friend, sit down and open the cheese while I dig the crackers out of my fanny pack. Make yourself comfortable because you’ve asked a significant question. And I’m sure you can hear the answer, because only last month you and I sat side by side on a logging road, blocking the advance of a bulldozer onto a privately owned old-growth forest.

The notion of private property assumes that land—and all that’s on it and under it—can be owned by humans. For this notion to survive, certain factors must exist, among them police, government, nations, states and war. The governments are there to make the laws regarding private property, the police are there to enforce them. If there’s a government, there’s a nation, and where there’s more than one nation, there’s war—usually over the issue of pri-

vate property.

For a person the first place to work for it,

to own something in means s/he has had that is, steal from

the land. But this is the irony, because how can you steal from something that you are a part of? The Earth would give to us generously on her own terms, but by taking without asking and proclaiming “MINE!”, we separate ourselves from nature. This

is the

The Earth, forest

root of our problem.

reality is that One cannot own any more than a

can own 60d nails. If to operate under a set

we are of the an ancient hardware store we continue of rules that

requires we pay for “other peoples’” private property, with money acquired from our own endeavors at exploiting the Earth, then we are supporting the

system that is destroying the Earth.

Now, on a more personal level, there are the issues of who-to steal from, and with what attitude one should loot. While it’s true that all business desecrates the Earth, there are some worse than others. Within the system there are some that are not only trashing the

planet worse than others, but they are exploiting other people by forcing the system on tnem, forcing them to be part of it all just to survive. To steal from the order-givers is to subvert the system. To steal from the order-takers is to support the continuation of the system that’s destroying the Earth and freedom. When the poor steal from the poor, those running the show only laugh. Consider, when choosing a target, if stealing from them will in any way threaten their ability to meet their day to day needs or deprive them of what may be their only bit of pleasure. If so, then it can hardly be justified. On the other hand, will stealing from this person or establishment hinder their ability to commit yet more pillage or exploitation? In this case, not stealing is the real crime!

Hand in hand with the importan-

ce of conscientious targeting is importance of thieving with the right attitude. If you steal in der to own things, to guard them tectively and label them “MINE!”,

the

or-

pro-

then you’re really only just supporting the institutic;: of Property. If you steal to share, then this supports the idea of communal use—you are not stealing, you are liberating! Stealing to do actions to protect the Earth (the community with which we share) is sabotage in itself. Besides, it’s more fun to share.

Then, there’s the very important question, what are you going to do if you don’t loot? You’re going to work, to slave, in order to survive. And just where will you find time to be an activist if you’re busy slaving all the time? Stealing is a monkeywrench in and of itself, but also it frees you to do more monkeywrenching. It frees you to play, to have fun, to be alive. The less you pay for, the more time you have to follow your desires.

By now, you might be asking “What about getting caught?” Is it worth it? First, I can tell you.

SHARE YOUR SCAMS!

Shoplifting, squatting, freight hopping, Atoten phone. credit candt J money AcamA, dumpAte*. (Living; theAe. axe dll MayA of xeAiAting the. toonk-beoAt. Mow, I know thebe’a totA of goo oat thete who axe proficient at totA of th cap tediniqaex...and mote. Please Aend in gour txickA, AcamA, AuiindteA, AhamA, AViateyieA and true AtoxieA, ao toe can Abate in ¿otate Laauia Mith other ad-ventuxoaA diAAentexA. We. Milt probably Akaxe tipA with Aome fotkA Mho ate cuxtentty oaA embting a Monk teAiAtou ‘ or you can unite to them

directly at pob 1131, Eugene, OR. 97440.

don’t get caught.

Don’t become a clep-to—it’s a common problem with beginning thieves. Learn to control your impulse to take things just enough to avoid irrational acts. Most beginners fail at this and get nailed. Beware of the dangers of stealing just for the thrill of it—this too is a

¹ Heal That

When You Wonder Why I’m a Hobo

Ole

blowm

by Lee

and the one one

Now I could be a doctor, my duty I never would shirk: But if I doctored a railroad bull. he‘d never go back to work. Now you wonder why I’m a hobo, and why 1 sleep in the ditch. Well, it ain’t because I’m lazy: NO. I just don’t want to be r. ’

it’s a funny thing most usually 1 subject of hoboing comes up which

safety shit to know: When you move ways hang on and don’t hang out too the doors of boxcars—trains jerk a that same reason always jam a spike of wood in the sliding track so the

around aldose to lot. For or a piece door won’t

in 10 or a dozen thousand miles have had gas of a lifetime. Ridin’ the rails is of the more consistently adventurous things can do, it’s one of those truly American

Now I could ride the pullman. but there it u again.

The plush they put on the pullman seats, it tickles my sensitive skin. Now I could be a conductor and never have a wreck, But any kind of a railroad man to me is a pain in the neck.

Now I could be a banker, if ever I wanted to be.

But the very thought of an iron cage is too suggestive to me.

Now I could be a broker, without the slightest excuse. But look at 1929, and tell me what’s the use.

kJ oh«/

wo K *

So

<TT

MOV/ lii T^ov^ f,^ ^<’// i>fiVi«i ^’< ^ J k

f® p5o/ecf ^,J< ^^ ^^

Train Whis^e

HUNGRY AND SICK OF WORK?

ou know, when the

is a hobby of mine and I generally like to spread the word around, someone invariably j says, “Gawd, didn’t that go out in the ’30’s ’

and whammo, aren’t there big sucks out there that wanna take your head off?” Well, I might say hmmmmmmm... to the first part and I know where they got that second stereotype: from Yul Brenner or some such as the Bull in “King of the North” with Paul Newman as the King Hobo and all that... “Sheesh” is what I say. Don’t make a mistake, the Bulls (railroad police) were bad then—I’ve read of attempted murder on the rails and I know a fellow who spent some time on a chain gang in Georgia in the ’40’s for hopping freights... but ridin’ the rails in the ’80’s is the coolest thing, highly recommend it! Now just watch, the first time you hop you’ll get killed and you’ll think what idiot advice this is but here’s whatz up with this boy: I’ve never gone to jail or received a ticket in 15 or 20 encounters with bulls

things like having sex in cars or Jazz, etc. and it’s scenic and free, free, free! Hey, here’s some thing Jack Kerouac says about thumbing: “...one of the biggest troubles hitchhiking is having to talk to innumerable people, make them feel that they didn’t make a mistake picking you up, even entertain them almost, all of which is a great strain when you’re going all the way and don’t plan to sleep in hotels.” So, I can see you’re convinced about the wisdom of the rails, O.K., here’s whatz up, how to do it: First, try and get some maps of how the

freight lines work and what companies (Southern Pacific, Burlington Northern, Santa Fe, etc.) go where but if you can’t don’t worry about it, it’s pretty obvious—freights go through all the cities and gobs of smaller towns and gobs of wilderness areas. Second: go down to the nearest freight yard and ask the workers about it. Say, “Hey, where’s the best place to catch a northbound, eastbound, southbound, or west-

bound to so and so and when’s Inquire about “hot shots” and can cuz they’re the fastest, ask, and ask around and don’t get bum info and miss a train

the next one? catch them if you The secret is ask,

be

or

There’s a thousand little things with experience that helpz a lot ing around some yards you’ll get

blown if you whatever.

you pick up and after stom-the hang of it.

Night time is best for avoiking the Bull, day time is alright, stay low and if the Bull stops you—be straight and friendly, show your ID. Often as not she or he will be friendly, maybe even helpful, in any case they will usually say something vague like, “Did you know riding trains is illegal? and I’d like to not see you again.” Translation: hang low and hide a bit better. About getting on: it’s preferable to get on before the train moves out but as often as not you’ll have to catch it “on the fly”, which is pretty slow if you’re carrying a pack. Boxcars are darn diffucult and dangerous to catch on the move, grain cars, piggybacks, gondolas are much easier cuz of ladders that are just a big step from the ground. Look way ahead, make sure you won’t stumble on anything while running alongside, concentrate, match your speed, focus—this is part of the zen of hopping—that moment and boom, you’re on, there’s a technique to it, be careful—safety first! as they say. Well,...

£4 T THE RICH!

there s a lot to know I guess but it s also just an intuitive fun activity that gets you around, know what I mean jellybean? So, here’s some

<H2

slam shut. Never ever stand in between the cars, one can become moosh real quick. Always look both ways before crossing tracks, in yards especially as single cars can be moving around sometimes very silently. When possible sleep sideways near a front wall or with your feet towards the front of the train in case of a derailment (they’re fairly rare) which causes the whole fucking thing to come screeching to a halt in which case you’re still going 50 mph...eek! Keep your head and have a gas and a half and I don’t’want to hear it if you get smooshed cuz

OvX. WK 5

CÀ ho y<>7 ca^7

i’m not advising you to go out and do illegal dangerous things, blah, blah, blah... Fun stuff: At railroad crossings be sure and wave to all

the people going by (actually you’re going they’re sitting still). Hang-out and talk hobos and farm laborers, there’s some good pie there, also a few bad eggs I suppose.

by.

with

peo-When

^<y Joy>‘Î f>to\j;<L~. iov^A Hcÿ ^jf W«H[ Hit Qjl

there’s nasty weather or going to be try and catch a ride in a locomotive or caboose, ask the engineer or caboose people first, I swear your first ride on “the power” (locomotives) will be a ride to remember! Freights can be fast but often slow too, patience is the name of the game, more than likely on any given trip

^kX <>hcc <<s*>\ 7^’$ t«v5<

you’ll do a in yards so there’s one name on it.

day or two of just waiting around bring some good books and relax— cornin’ around the bend with your Women might want to take an old

7^‘y only Xj4<*y

pee can, peeing ain’t easy on a jiggling train. Make sure you’ve got some peanut butter and banana sandwiches and plenty of water and a warm sleeping bag and Gawd damn leave the driving up to them!

Tk<»Y wkol< ivcki ^ ⁵ys^

70 V^i\€k ‘VC WÂ^f (xc^^

Wigwam

lifting, the most common form of theft, always be willing to put things back if you feel you’ve been seen. I say these things with a bit of hesitation, as I dream of the day when we can all boldly walk into the city and liberate what will then belong to us all openly and proudly. But in the mean time, don’t get caught! (In future issues we would like to print information on antitheft security systems and how to spot and avoid them. Please send in tips if you have them—or, would someone write an article on the subject?).

However, if you do get caught—at least for something minor like shoplifting—it’s

not that big of a even be arrested, released shortly, may have to pay a ice or some such.

You may or may not you’ll probably be going to court you

deal.

If so After

fine, do community serv-(Not always: in some

towns you do two weeks in jail if convicted of shoplifting, no matter what your sob story. Check the police and court report sections of your local paper to see what type of sentences shoplifters are getting. This is also a good way to find out which stores have extensive security systems as the location of the “crime” is often given in the report.) I suggest you think of it in terms of it being a small price to pay in exchange for how much you’ve gained. Undoubtedly if you add up the total number of hours spent in the bowels of the system, as compared to your total gain in stolen items, you will find that you were probably earning several hundred dollars an hour—all at the expense of your enemies.

Lastly, I want to tell you, don’t be scared. Be a little nervous, wary, very aware and cautious but don’t let the leviathan scare you. It is not as omnipotent as They would have us believe. As we know from our monkeywrenching lessons, every monster has it’s Achille’s heel. Look for it carefully, and take advantage appropriately. And always, always, have fun.

•Simply put. it is possible now in 1988. to turn around the reality of a secretary’s self-image from that of a pre-liberation drone to that of a recognized and self-affirmed potent link in the chain of product ion.” citnlend^^^

Empowering a worker whose J d«cr,P‘«>n has more clunk! ‘han Hout lakes some psycho^, ml^^’” ⁰¹ haⁿd Bu’ Finkel de-1 nies conjuring up that self-respect I is yocat|Oₗₗd₍ voodoo. “It s not map I

^e said, though she likens I parts of her workshop to “turning I a^hveMemish intoapoSl

lor:

Tinkering With

Employées’ Brains

■ w YOU I out YOUR JOB? ■

Clippings from article on entrepreneurs who are making big bucks subverting and mollifying healthy, natural rebellion to work itself. Think twice before you look at society and attribute all you see to “human nature”—it takes extrordinary effort to keep our unruly, wild natures in line. If people’s truest desires really are realized by work, consuming, technology, government, video games and all the rest, then why all the effort to keep us in line? Trust your desires! Be wild! Quit your job! Clipping from the S.F. Chronicle 16-7-88. ^MSMi^HHMlMi

At Bell Laboratories, management s ability to attune employee attitudes to mesh with the hardware and software of a new computerized setting was called “roleware.

So when the boss says. “Hey, Thelma, make it cream and sugar,” the recharged secretary, feeling her personal power, replies confidently, “OK, but only if you get it tomorrow.” And that overload of overtime? Now she understands it s one more indication of her vital role. But she has a heart-to-heart with the boss anyway.

Some experts maintain that such outposts of self-respect on to-1 day’s job front have been made all the more essential by a continuing dehumanization of American work life.

Others equate corporations applying such mind-tinkering techniques with handing out doses of soma, “the happiness drug” in Aldous Huxley s Brave New World that made drones content to carry out their menial labor _______

Donald Moine, an organizational psychologist with the Association for Human Achievement, in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., sometimes has clients repeat “an affirmation or internal dialogue” a thousand times, such as “1 deserve this raise, I am a hard worker. I deserve this raise... ”

I gam from’the°tSⁿ’es

■ foniext of Ro-Mtion. I

I bea’souₙding tram e ‘ol of 1 ^¿¡¡¿^ * actual 1

Obviously there is a payoff for

the company What corporate ex- I ecutive would shell out $225-a I head to frees and Dinkel. for in I stance, to train secretaries in of- I fiee rebellion? “A savvy boss will see the improvements,” says Dm kel, “in terms of greater commitment, less absenteeism and higher productivity.”

IS WATCHING YOU ! .

The separation of seeing froa doing:

It’s what divide# hi# action# from hi# desires, hi# daily life from Nature.

We manufacture an endless stream of images to keep him distracted lest he catch on and rebel.

We’ll allow him to see whatever he wants. So he’ll do whatever we want. His continued passivity is our only security from efie rage he must suppress ro survive.

THE POQTg QF OUR MISERY:

The Latin word for labor means “suffering.”

But. with enough tune end work, he’ll come to accept simulated Life as if it were tn# real thing. He’ll be ju«t fine.

You see, to make society work require# an image for people to love.

YOU KNOW WHO WE ARE.

EARTH FIRSTER/’^ANME^-TW-fWEEST

United Stacis Department of Agriculture

Forest Service

Region 1

Lolo

National

Forest

Building 2-t

Fort Missoula

Missoula. MT 59801

REPLY TO: 6170-5-1

SUBJECT: Separation Notice

TO: John C. Lilburn

P.O. Box 7381

Missoula. MT 59807

Dat«: April 22, 1988

CERTIFIED MAIL

RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED

On Thursday. April 21, 1988, you participated in an Earth First demonstration against the Forest Service and you were arrested for littering Government and city property.

This is notice that you are being separated from your employment with the Forest Service effective April 29, 1988, for impeding Government efficiency and affecting adversely the confidence of the public in the integrity of the Government.

From “Tripalium”, an ancient instrument of torture, comes the word “travail.”

The Greek word for work, “ponos”, has the same root as the Latin “poena”, which means suffering.

WORK: THE REAL CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

Employment Officer

“INTEGRITY OF GEMMENT “ ^??

Hunt

Sabotage

Once upon a time, bighorn sheep thrived throughout the mountain and desert ranges of the West, numbering about 10,000 in California alone. But the sheep were easy targets for early settlers gathering at scarce waterholes. By 1873, fewer than 1200 bighorns were left in California. At that time, conservation efforts forced the Department of Fish and Game, (DFG), to put restrictions on hunting the bighorns.

Two years ago, the DFG decided to begin an experimental Nelson hunt in the East Mojave Desert. During the past five years, 20 ewes and young rams have been relocated to this area at a cost of $2000 per animal. Overpopulation of the sheep is encouraged by the construction of “guzzlers,” (artificial water tanks), in the desert.

This year, eight hunting permits were drawn out of a pool of 3385 applicants. Each hunter paid $200 for the chance to “bag a trophy.” One permit was auctioned off in addition, that netted $59,000 for the DFG.

Also for the second year in a row. Hunt Saboteurs showed up to disrupt the hunt. This took some amount of courage, as last year’s hunt sab resulted in several activists being locked in a horse trailer for 11 hours, and one activist having his nose broken by angry hunters.

This is an interview with that same activist, Lee Desseaux.

Live Wild or Die: Tell us about the Bighorn Hunt.

...Die: Why?

Lee: A lot of us feel that it is ecological lunacy to be hunting animals who’s overall numbers stand at 2300 statewide, hence Earth First! involvement. There are other environmental reasons such as the importance of the roles the mature rams play in herd dynamics—an alpha male kinda thing, There’s also the animal rights social thing about fucking up activities that exploit animals for fun and ego-gratification. Being involved in both movements, it’s been a jazz to see EFiers and animal rights activists boogying around the desert together.

■..Die: The DFG and the hunters claim that the dollars from the hunt benefit the sheep and that hunt-sabbing is hurting that scene?

Lee: Yeah, yeah, it’s a human-centered wildlife management system that works on a certain level and it’s the old argument that hunters everywhere use. From a deep ecological perspective, it’s bullshit. The DFG has relocated a lot of sheep and that’s great—we’re glad about that, that’s what they should be doing! They’ve built water guzzlers which is a temporary band-aid kind of thing, they’ve done nothing about, and appear to have no interest or backbone in kicking the cows/ORVs/miners out of bighorn habitat, which historically included large portions of the state. Neither are they even thinking of restoring native predators to the wildlands of California. It’s somewhat of a mystery that a government agency can be so thick, though it’s not really, it’s just business as usual, in this case narrow-minded business that caters to trophy hunter’s interests.

■..Die: There’s been some violence?

Lee: Yes, we’re all more or less non-violent. The same cannot be said of pissed-off hunters. This year, more sabbers were chased, two were even “pot-shotted” at. The first year, some of us were hassled and falsely imprisoned in a horse trailer. My nose was broken and eventually we were jailed on felony charges.

■..Die: What’s been gained? What’s in the future for hunt sabotage?

Lee: Both years all the hunters bagged their sheep, in spite of our efforts. We got gobs of media, (L.A. Times, S.F. Bay Guardian, Associated Press, etc. etc.) Perhaps most Importantly the motley group of us have gained some good experience. For the future, I’d like to see lots of experimentation with more radical approaches to hunt sabblng, (beginning Jan. ’89, “hunter harassment” will be illegal in California). It’d be hot to see a greater number of people willing to bust up hunts. The large (and small) mammals of the western states are on the run— there are trophy hunts of big horns, black bears, lions, even grizzlies, going on from state to state, to say nothing of slob hunting and varmint hunting; all good clean sport, of course.

,■.Die: What can activists do now to help?

Lee: Right now? Well, hunting season is mostly in the autumn...I’d say people can start practicing by running up and down stairs with heavy weights and yelling things like, “UP YOURS, YOU BUGGER!” and stuff like that. Also, people can send money if they want.

Lee: Well, this was our second annual Bighorn Sheep sabotage. A few years ago. Nelson Bighorn were de-listed from endangered or rare or some such,(I forget which), status in California. That has boiled down to a DFG sponsored trophy hunt the last two Decembers in the East Mojave Desert. In ’87 around 20 EF!ers and animal rights activists, and twice that many this last December, all came together and collaborated to ruin some hunters’ vacations.

■..Die: How does one save sheep?

Lee: Actually, it takes more than one. The technique is simple but very energetic. It basically involves monitoring the hunters and their movements, following them and blowing air horns when they’ve spotted their sheep, and thereby ruining their shot....and then running up and down steep mountains when they (the hunters) chase you.

Ste/feM.

Dear Live Wild!, It was while reading an interview with Dave Foreman in the 20^th anniversary issue of the Whole Earth Review that two things occurred to me. First of all how Dave has achieved stardom and is now in lots of magazines but also included in the symposia of “Great Minds” in such large circulation publications: the more EF!—supposedly a diverse group with no leaders—confronts the industrial juggernaut, the louder is one person’s voice and the finer his imperial clothes will appear to those outside the group.

And I wondered—how do the rest of us gain any voice, how does EF! expand beyond this one point of view, the Big Man’s booming voice? How can diversity become a reality and not a rationalization for Dave to do anything he likes with the group?

I started to have my doubts last summer at the Round River Rendezvous when I realized that on all matters, large and small, Dave was to have his way. An emperor, really! It was also then that I noticed how his hunger for power and control contains the classic fascination with shit, associated with the anal stage of development in psychoanalysis, and which has been characteristic of capitalism since the origins of Protestantism, the money economy and the work ethic. Norman 0. Brown, in his book Life Against Death, has drawn a very believable picture of this relationship between shit, “filthy lucre” (money) and power over others (including the world and nature). Dave, despite all the razzmatazz about spontaneity, equality and wilderness, seems to fit this profile.

(It shouldn’t be entirely surprising to us. The wilderness defender, like the zen adept, may easily be the last person to achieve deep ecological self-realization or enlightenment. The proximity to the ideal becomes the last resistance to crossing over to authentic understanding, be it buddhahood or real tribal divers-

Foreman said in the Whole Earth Review that he thought “the Shit will hit the fan in the next 20 years.” And that suddenly reminded me of last summer’s RRR. The Washington folks had done to great lengths to provide ecologically sound, locally made privies for our gathering. They used a kind of ash and wood chip mixture, I think, to deal with the real, not metaphorical, shit of wilderness warriors. The privies were a great idea, and given that we weren’t in a pristine wilderness but an already logged cow pasture, and they were approved by the local health department- and the USFS, everybody should have been satisfied with them. And as is our policy, the say in this matter should have rested with the Rendezvous committee, if we are as egalitarian and decentralized as we claim.

But then Dave said no; the Enner-or declared that the organizers must provide petrochemical potties (which would have to be trucked in and out and then their chemo-shit mixture either sprayed on some rural dumping ground or run through some industri-ized treatment plant back in Megalopolis) . People didn’t like the idea, and balked, which was when Foreman announced that if there were no chemopotties, he would stay home. Well, if anyone else had made such an ultimatum, we would have called the person on it. But what is an RRR without Chairman Dave, after all? So ‘the organizers relented and Dave got to sit on his throne in the style to which he is accustomed.

I liked people’s responses—the boycott of those fiberglass space stations,those Lutheran shrines to civilized man. The handmade posters that proliferated were also great. And even when Dave offered to pay the cost, it didn’t set well—I realized we aren’t all equals on this bus. Maybe the anarchists have a point, after all. Because I also remember the previous year’s hullabaloo around Alien-Nation, how A-N became thq focus, conveniently, of diatribes against„anarchism. Does anyone else remember ‘Nancy Morton’s argument that anarchy could never work in real life, how if EF! had been anarchist, we would never have gotten portapotties into the Grand Canyon? For Nancy, too, the reassuring presence of industrial chemopotties was not a simple necessity based on a specific context, a logistical question, but the dividing line, the cutting

edge between anarchy (or chaos) and the organized world. Anarchy—the abolition of organized power and the system of power—would result if the regime of shitting that is the paradigm for the megalopolitan behemoth were to be challenged. And the autonomy of other tribal folks must even be overrun by the porta-patriarchy if this pseudo-cleanliness is not upheld. Weird!

We’re not such hot shit, then, are we? The no-compromise gang caved in to the Emperor’s tantrum. For the rest of us, the prospect of an EF! without Dave, or the Earth without EF!, is apparently as terrifying as an RRR without plastic toilets is for the Pharaoh himself. If the Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism, for all its Christian fastidiousness and compulsive cleanliness , is turning the world into a toxic shit pile (the image of a sanitized shopping mall juxtaposed with the toxic dump that must inevitably accompany it comes to mind), what is Foreman’s compulsion to control reality and keep all shit in its place doing to EF!?

Just wondering, Lee Muir

Letters: Letters to Live Wild- are always encouraged and should be sent neatly printed or typed. All letters will be printed with author’s initials only unless requested otherwise. Letters will be edited only if they are excessively long or boring—not for political content. Edi tod letters will be noted ani complete copies made available on request. Sending letters or articles typed into 95mm columns (which will be reduced later to 15%) will save us the tedium of any more extra typing. Thanks!

Deep Woods, Turtle Island

WITH ENOUGH TOOTH BRUSHES...

By Mikal

INTRO: On December 24, 233,000 gallons of oil was spilled into the ocean just outside of Gray’s Harbor on the southern Washington coast. The incident occured during a heavy storm (20’ swells) after a tug-to-barge tow cable snapped. In the process of regaining control of the barge (the “Nestucca”), the tug-boat operated by Sause Bros. Ocean Towing rammed the barge, ripping a 7’ gash in its side. Ostensibly to protect the fragile Gray’s Harbor ecosystem, the leaking barge was towed out to sea and later the spill was finally brought under control.

Almost immediately, oil-soaked seabirds began washing up along the shores and a massive propaganda campaign was launched to rouse-up volunteers to help clean the birds. Initially, the spill was “officially determined” to be 70,000 gallons and, according to Coast Guard officials, was expected to dissipate “harmlessly” at sea. 200 birds were dead and tens of miles of beach had been fouled within a couple of days and bird rescuers estimated that clean-up operations might have to continue for a couple weeks. In the early media accounts, as well as all successive coverage, Sause Bros, was consistently quoted as accepting “full responsibility” for the incident. Typically, this was never defined—but if it sounds good in the media, why bother?

Almost a week later: Gee, looks like someone goofed. The actual size of the spill is now known to be much bigger than 70,000

gallons and dead birds number in the high hundreds. The oil slick, pushed by ocean currents and winds has now fouled pristine wilderness beaches on the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Olympic National Park. Against usual procedure, helicopters and motorized vehicles are being used in these areas to aid clean-up efforts. Volunteers are being actively sought as are donations of toothbrushes, rags and dishwashing liquid to clean the birds. (I wonder: why volunteers and donations if Sause Bros, is accepting “full responsibility”? Should I send them a bill for my toothbrush?) A “command center” has been set up in the Ocean Shores, WA Convention Center. Dozens to hundreds of volunteers (depending on the day) work here cleaning birds and out on the beaches gathering bothlive and dead animals. Live birds are thrown into large plastic crash ?aas ind taken to the Center where many are euthanized an cne spot. Most oiled birds are sea-diving species which become oil-coated when reeding below the surface. They flounder helplessly in the oil and are washed to shore. There is a volunteer meeting in Bellingham tonight. I’ll go.

The meeting is depressing. 60 or so people listen to details of the cleaning process: one hour of scrubbing per bird is required to effectively clean them. Then a tube is forced all the way into the bird’s stomach as it is force-fed an electrolyte solution to help offset the effects of the ingested oil. On the wall is a chart detailing mortality rates; very, very few of the affected creatures live to be re-released in the wild. Though

released away from the oil, some fly back. Re-oiled banded birds have already been found. The work is difficult, nasty and heartbreaking. Still, most hands go up when the question of volunteers is posed.

CHILD(-ISH)HOOD ILLUSIONS

I can remember as an enthusiastic ecology-minded kid in the ’70’s, how I would go out to the nearby fields and hills and do my part to save the world by collecting Recyclable aluminum cans. I had heroes then and I fan-tasied about the day when I might be able to voyage out with Greenpeace and save the whales. When the big off-shore oil rig blowout hit the shores of Santa Barbara, I saw the “ecology people” on T.V. fixing-up the world! What brave and noble deeds these were! When the folks took us kids to the beach I always came home with a bucket of trash and tar blobs I’d picked up. I could hardly wait till I was old enough to do it for real. Alas, like all T.V. believers I had come to mistake a manufactured appearance for reality. It took a couple of years of sporadic direct action with Greenpeace to finally disabuse me of my romantic (media) notions about that organization. As of this night, however, my longstanding desire to help clean up pollution-injured creatures had yet to be either consummated or shattered. It was a reawakening of this childhood illusion that lifted my hand up with the others’.

Even before I could lower my arm, though, I began to have doubts. Wouldn’t it be better

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to spend my time interfering with the industry’s business-as-usual? Someone in the front of the room gets up and begins talking about the need for more regulations. When another person asks what she can do besides go down to help, she is told to write her Congressman a letter and “demand” that they pass laws re-

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quiring better technology. Other people speak of the need to establish clean-up procedures “so that when it happens here we’ll be ‘ready’” (my emphases). I’m furious. What’s wrong with these people? The audience is one thing— they’re just here to help—but for so-called environmentalists to be apologizing for the oil industry— traditional arch-foe of environmentalism (and the environment!)—

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is nothing short of obscene. I reraise my hand, this time to speak.

I blurt out something about solving real problems instead of just buying bigger bandaids and stutter another blurb about how some of us think we shouldn’t have to accept whatever Big Oil shoves down our throats. I’m sweating and shocked and almost too dumbfounded to speak. I know now that I wont be cleaning birds at Ocean Shores. As the last shreds of my childhood fantasy fall around my feet I begin to wonder what kind of conspiracy this must be when the oil industry, environmentalists and the media all say the same thing.

THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTION IS ILLUSION

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It can be fairly easily argued that anytime we “put bandaids an the cancer”—that is, whenever we concentrate on the symptoms instead of the underlying problem—that we hinder a real solution since our effort is directed elsewhere and not toward that solution. Additionally, in this T.V. society, the bandaids usually make bet-

ter copy, rarely threaten the status quo and therefore tend to receive all the attention, further directing activity away from effective solutions. This is a nice “theory”, many will say, but what about “reality”? And of course this “realism” always demands a sacrificial devotion to the issues, to the latest most spectacular excesses of industrial capitalist civilization. It is this principle of “useful suffering” combined with uncritical devotion to the issue or the cause that seems to be the hallmark of modern activism. Perhaps this is an accomodation to the overwhelming physical presence of the machine culture and its crushing immensity. Possibly this condition is a re-

flection of the extent to which we’ve internalized industrialism’s logic and rythms. thereby constructing emotional walls that block out any awareness beyond their confines. Either way, it’s always easier to lose oneself in some diversion—causes, ideologies, drugs, religion, materialism, etc.—than to confront the horrendous actuality of the industrial plague. Or, to put it another way, doing something for the sake of “doing semething” is usually ineffective and often sabotages and undermines the possibility for a genuine solution. The bird clean-up is a perfect example

Putting aside, for now, the ecosystemwide effects that the spill will have (as if that makes them go away), let’s look a bit closer at the birds. At this writing, 6 weeks after the incident, nearly 7,000 affected seabirds have been counted—most of them dead. Further, according to a WA Dept, of Ecology report* on the 1984 Whidbey Island oil spill: “There is reason to believe that in addition to the documented oiled and dead birds...other birds were oiled and killed and their remains were not found, probably having sunk before reaching shore.” By banding dead birds, returning them to sea and counting those that washed up “it was determined that only 20Z of the birds were cast on the beaches, the rest having sunk offshore.” “It is probable that many more birds were oiled and killed than we can document by actual carcas counts. Based on (cases previously quoted in the Report) factors of five to eight could be applied to the counts.” (emphasis added). The Report goes on to document reproductive dysfunctions in oiled birds and then states:

The inescapable conclusion of these studies is that even small amounts of oil ingested by birds can lead to hemolytic anemia, failure of early embryos to continue to develop in the female, embryonic death of embryos in already laid eggs, depression of growth and development of nestlings, and physiological disruption of adults and decreased foraging ability of adults and nestlings. These studies indicate that the fractions in crude oil and refined oils that ffect birds are not elimimated after short periods of weathering. Oil can enter a bird directly, on or in food items, or from preening oiled plumage. Oil on plumage can cause embyronic death of eggs that come into contact with it.

For the sake of example, let’s put the dead bird count for the U.S. and Canada at 10,000 (probably a very conservative estimate!). This would mean actual kills could be as high as 80,000!! And even of those live birds cleaned and released, states the Report, “there is reason to believe they will not successfully return to the breeding population.” Granted, circumstances of this recent incident are not identical to the one studied in 1984 and so the effects may not be quite as bad—they could also be considerably worse. Regardless, the simple numerical impact is staggering (and remember, this doesn’t include all the other species affected). For all the outpouring of emotional, physical and financial energy, the benefits of the clean-up may be negligible at best. Yet this aspect has been unfailingly omitted from all public discussion. It doesn’t make good copy or sell newspapers or enhance the careers of established environmental politicians. But what such spectacles as the bird rescue do accomplish is clear: they divert attention away from real problems and subvert the potentiality for radical critiques and demands. Even the possibility for using the spill as a lobbying tool against offshore drilling is subverted by the clean-up since it makes drilling and it’s attendant spills seem less destructive. For all the noble intentions and genuine sympathy of the rescue volunteers (never to be denied), the operation has been a major victory, a virtual propaganda coup, for Oil and Industry. Guess who the losers are?

THE GREAT GLOBAL OIL SPILL

Whenever oil is pulled from the ground, transported, refined, processed, used, burned or disposed of, there is nothing but trouble. It is easy to oppose offshore drilling in your front yard, but if not here, then where? To get oil from the Persian Gulf and other foreign countries requires U.S. political, military and economic hegemony be maintained (with its now-headline results) in those re-

business climate. It is the fear of many that a nuclear war could be touched-off by a confrontation over oil-rich areas. How about drilling in the sensitive Alaska National Wildlife Refuge? Or Prudhoe Bay? Or the California coast? Or the Gulf of Mexico? Which section of ocean shall “we” sacrifice? Who gets to decide?

The easy drilling on flat land-based oil fields is a thing of the past. Drilling must now take place in increasingly remote and difficult-to-access areas. In the Rocky Moun-

tain Front, for example, exploration requires

extremely destructive roadbuilding in wilderness and grizzly bear habitat. Who will volunteer their favorite stretch of coast or wilderness for oil production?

Once it’s extracted, the damage has just begun. Any time oil is transported there is the unavoidable danger of spills. Trucks and trains regularly crash, dumping petrochemicals into rivers and lakes. Transporting oil on the water has well-publicized effects. There have been six major oil spills along the Washington coast since 1971. Right now, even as this latest one is being “cleaned up” here, there is a massive slick hitting the most biologically rich region of Antarctica. There has just been another spill off of Alaska...

And the uses of the stuff: disposable plastic for the fast-paced consumer culture; gasoline which when burned causes the greenhouse effect and acid rain; chemicals, like ozone-destroying CFC’s. Most all petroleum distillates are toxic. All are even worse when burned. Plastic fouls the landscape, contributes to overflowing landfills and gives off toxic fumes and ash when incinerated.

Another aspect not often looked at is the system of oil-based society. To extract.

transport and refine oil requires a massi-fied social organization where humans are necessarily only cogs in the Machine. It is not possible to have a “bioregional”, “community-based”, “decentralized”, “human scale” or “appropriate technology” oil industry. This social order requires a massive bureaucratic/ state apparatus in order to manage it and a military/police force to keep everyone in line. After all, who would voluntarily slave in an oil refinery if they didn’t have to out of economic necessity? There are undoubtedly a few questionable benefits, but oil is a whole prize package. You don’t get the shine without all the shit, too.

Notice that I’ve not gone into issues of corporate/government collusion, violations of environmental laws, price fixing and all the rest of the superficial details of the industry. It is all too easy to reduce what should be complex critiques to issues of whether or not some new clause should be written into some arcane, never-enforced-anyway regulation or how much money the industry made last year and the like. The Democrats and Mother Jones magazine make quite a career out of using these distractions to prevent a critique that.

if ever realized, would put them both out of

business.

However universally horrendous oil use may be, the obvious physical reality is that industrial civilization cannot run without it. Production of “alternative” fuels is in itself dependent on petrochemicals—whether it is to fertilize, harvest or transport grain for ethanol or to manufacture extremely energy-intensive items such as solar cells or wind generators (which often don’t even provide “energy payback”). It’s oil (or perhaps coal—just as bad), or it’s nothing. There are no “two sides” to this issue. And while industrialism cannot survive without it, it is becoming increasingly apparent— acid rain, cancer, greenhouse effect,...— that human beings and the world cannot survive, not to mention really live, with it either! This oil is finite and will one day run out. Oil and civilization will stop. The question is whether or not there will be anything or anyone left. Why not just stop now and enjoy the inevitable?

THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTIOH IS REVOLUTION(ARY)

With oil comes oil spills and a host of other catastrophes. None of which are fix-

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How Much Of The Planet’s Life

Does Vour Cadillac Cost?

he energy an organism feeds upon defines it within the cosmic web of energy flows.

What each species feeds upon within the life of the earth describes the parameters of its behavior

and physical identity. The wolf, for example, is physically structured so that it can catch and eat deer. Its social life IS structured so that it can hunt in packs, therefore enabling the wolf to catch deer that it could not catch individually

What one puts in one’s mouth is a fundamental spiritual, cultural and political act. The nature of the energy one feeds upon either outs one in balance with the cosmos or it puts one in disharmony with the cosmos-an organic state of disease.

In the recent past of our two million year family history, some have abandoned the natural culture of the human family and a disease has broken out in the form of empires. The patriarchical empire is a fundamental ecological imbalance, a fundamental sexual imbalance, a fundamental population imbalance and a fundamental mental imbalance (wherein a living organism confuses its identity with its accumulation of dead material objects).

The basic nature of this planetary disease is a cyclic swelling and collapse of populations who make increasing material demands upon the declining planetary fertility. The legacy of Empire can be traced through China (the great forests and soils gone), Indus Valley (entire semi-arid ecosystem gone). Tigris-Euphrates (forests, soils gone and one-third of the arable land salinired). Mediterranean (soils, forest gone and North Africa, a rock pile). Europe (natural forest ecosystem gone, acid rain preparing a final coup-de-grace) -and now. the whole planet through the agency of the world-wide industrial empire.

When a disease agent invades an organism the organism will attack and eradicate it. or the disease agent will kill the host and then die itself, or. there will be some kind of remission. In China we see a late stage of the disease that has achieved some remission at a very low level. The forces of the planet-cosmos have guided the Chinese social body into a highly simplified, artificial and probably temporary balance wherein they live on their own excrement. The culture of empire was finally forced to observe one natural energy cycle. When there was nothing left alive, the people began creating soil from their own feces. Historians agree that the Chinese could not have survived without the use of ‘“nightsoil.”

So. what we choose to put in our mouth enhances the life of the planet, balances with it or runs a net deficit. It takes the planetary life between 300 and 1.000 years to build each inch of topsoil and “civilization” has been running a net deficit since it began. Once balance was lost, the warrior cult of empire began dipping into the fund of planetary fertility. Since then, its explosive boom and bust cycles have been financed from the death of the living things of the planet.

Within the industrial Empire, the mediums of communication frame the beginning of the end of the last cycle as “acts of God.” In the most ecologically de-vasted areas of the planet, where there is no ecological margin left: Ethiopia, East Africa, Central America, etc., there are masses of people and few living things-topsoil-and any perturbation becomes a crisis that is called a drought, flood, famine or other “acts of God.”

As the ecological devastation frames the picture of numerically exploding “societies in crisis” the great question of the next century arises, “How can we live without killing the Earth, and ultimately ourselves as well?”

On the watershed of the San Francisco River we know of six distinct cultural forms that have occupied the area and each has addressed the question in a different way. Each cultural form was integrated with or isolated from the life of the earth by diet. These cultures were the Pleistocene—Pit-House People, the Kiva People (Anasazi Mimbres Mogollon Pueblo), the Apache foragers; the Spanish village-planter-herders; the Texas cow herders and the present cow, timber, industrial axis.

.45 the ecological devastation frames the picture of numerically exploding “societies in crisis, “the great question of the next century arises, “How can we live without killing the Earth, and. ultimately ourselves as well?”

The Human-Planet Metabolism

The Pit-House People lived thoroughly within the cyclic metabolism of the Sen Francisco Watershed There are two moisture cycles on the watershed. On-of the “rainy seasons” begins around the first part o’ July with the incoming thunderstorms that come wf

Fifth Esate Note: In “Earth Culture-Earth Diet.” author William H. Koethke chronicles the lile and culture of the inhabitants along New Mexico’s San Francisco River watershed over a millennium up to the present time. At the time he wrote the article William lived in the area described, but has since become a member of the consensus community of Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit. Oregon. He recently was arrested for blockading logging crews trying to cut the last remnan t of undamaged old growth forest near his community.

air currents off the Gulf of Mexico-these last -nt-Fall. In late Fall and Winter, weather comes from me Southwest, from the direction of the southern tin o* Baja California. These winds bring winter storms J-‘U moisture. From March until July a mini-diought or dry season occurs. Each of the two seasonal ram pe iods have their own characteristic species of grasses and forbs known as “cool season” and “warm seaso plants. As the summer plants seed out anti have be come brown, the cool season plants germinal’.’ and begin some growth. They lie dormant over Decern ber and January and then grow again to seed out .n May and June.

The animals have their own cycles of migration and reproduction as well as the birds. Many of these cycles climax in the fall in the Chaparral country, that life zone where the pinon-|uniper forest meets the ponderosa pine forest at 6.000 feet elev to 7.500 feet This area, the Chaparral, features an abundant mixture of oak and manzanita also. In the Fall many things ripen; the pinon nuts, yucca, bananas grapes, acorns, berries, grass seeds and many others. At this time the animals migrate to the Chaparral to get fat before the winter. Skunks, racoons, squirrels, deer, bear. elk. peccary, turkey, mountain sheep and others are followed into the Chaparral by the coyote, cougar ringtails and bobcat.

It is in this Chaparral region that one finds most of the shallow depressions and other artifacts of the ancient Pit-House People. No doubt they foraged Widely, but they were in the Chaparral each fall for the big harvest.

The metabolism of the planet was their metabolism. In wet cycles more deer ate more acorns and the deer fat kept the Pit-House People fueled against the cold-damp. We have no record of these peoples’ human culture but anthropologists studying tribal foragers calculate that they had exceptional health and each person averaged 500 hours “work” annually to sustain themselves; plenty of time to sing and dance-and tell coyote stories.

The Mayan Adaptation

The Pit-House People were in the area in the dim (>ast and until 100–500 A.D We don’t know if the Pit House clan were the grandmothers and grandfathers of the Kiva People (Anasazi era. 500 A.D. to Pueblo present) but chances are good that they were. There was, though, one essential difference-the Mayan Adaptation; that is. Mother Corn and her Sisters- beans, squash and chiles.

The Mayan Adaptation brought in a new metabolism with the Kiva People. The Kiva People shared the Feathered Serpent cosmology with the Maya-Aztec and were in a sense the suburbs of Copan, Uxmal and Teotihuacan.

Corn needs reasonably flat land, while squash and chiles especially, need periodic watering, so the Kiva People put up their stone house villages near the live water streams in valley bottoms. This is the riparian habitat. It is the other area on the Watershed of explosive fertility that resonates with the Chaparral. Beaver dams, great meadows, willow thickets, cat tails, black walnut, grapes, berries, arrow-leaf potatoes.

birds, animals and more abounded.

From their agriculture-forager-hunter metabolism these people of the Mimbres pottery designs created a rich, complex and beautiful human culture, the equal of any on the planet. Not only did they participate in the planetary metabolism by eating from what was offered by the earth, but their very culture was a dramatic expression of tiiat life.

Whether it is a mid-Winter ceremony to divine the late of the bean seed for next season, the kinship communicated with the deer in the Deer Dance Ceremony, the Green Corn Dance, the Snake Dance or any of the other ceremonies too numerous to men-non-they are the life of the earth in human dramatization. as the present Kiva People, the Pueblos, demonstrate.

But-thcre are questions. Anthropologists who study agriculture-forager-hunter people world-wide

say individuals of those cultures each average 1.000 hours “work” per year and that their health is not as good as the forager-hunter and many die sooner.

On this watershed, there was a tremendous concentration of Kiva People, in excess of thirty thousand. Questions exist from archeology. Did they deforest the area for firewood and building materials? Did they denude the area of wildlife? Did they bring the life of the land to the edge so that when the dry cycle came on there was no margin left? Did they too precipitate “acts of God?” The present Pueblos have not. But why did the Anasazi disappear so mysteriously during one era? We don’t know and if any grandparents in the Pueblos do know, they are not telling. What we do know is that the Athabascans (Navajo-Apache) filled the vacuum.

The Roving Harvesters

The invading masses from 16^th Century Europe found a people on this watershed that they called Apache. According to ethnobiologists Morris E. Op-ler and Edward F. Castetter, about 50% of the Apache diet was meat and the other half made up of nonmeat sources-true forager-hunters.

These two scholars say that the people “moved with the seasonal change of weather, and followed the wild food harvests as they occured....When colder weather came he (sic) removed to a lower altitude, in Summer he (sic) was in the highlands again. When the mesquite and screw-bean ripened or a certain am mal’s fur or flesh was at its best at a particular time, the Apache was present to share in the harvest.”

The San Francisco Watershed was the home of the northern clan of the Chokonen (Chiricuahua) tribe. In the last days, Chihuahua was Elder of the northern clan and Cochise was Elder of the clan centered

around the Chiricuahua and Dragoon Mountains to the South.

On the West of the Nortern Chokonen, were the White Mountain bands and to the East, on the headwaters of the Gila River, were the Bedonkohes of which Geronimo was a member.

Kaywaykla (who was one of the handful out of all the local bands to survive the genocide of the Empire) was from the Chihinne hand, of which Victorio was a leader in the last days- The Chihinnes were centered Northwest of the Watershed near Ojo Caliente. Kay-waykla says that sometimes they migrated in Winter to the bottom of the Barranca del Cobre, the deep canyon system leading West off the Sierra Madre Oci-dental in Mexico. There, they could watch Sea Lions play in the river and eat tropical fruit off the trees in the canyon bottoms.

He says (by translation): “My people spent their Summers in the mountains of New Mexico, carefree, untrammeled. They migrated to Mexico in the Fall, living off the land as they went, killing game, harvest ing fruit, and giving thanks to Ussen for the good things He had given. They knew the land of jungles and of tropical fruit. They knew the people whose land they crossed. They were on the very best of terms with Cochise and his band. They penetrated the fastness of Juh. Chief of the Nednhi. and were received as brothers. When they in turn came to us we gave freely of our best.”

The Chokonen were foragers and hunters, but could be keen planters when the occasion arose. At their camps, if the area was appropriate, they scattered seed which would help feed.them next cycle. Of all the groups of omnivore humans, the Chokonen reached toward the maximum of nutrition of the Watershed. Whether lambsquarters (more calcium per volume than cow’s milk) or cattail roots (ground to flower it equals rice or corn nutritionally) or any of the other dozens of food sources, their nutrition was superior.

Diet Is Politics

The Chokonen were democrats. They practiced as pure a form of democracy as is known. All leaders served by popular assent and. in addition, decisions were made by consensus, that is. all must agree to a decision, not just a simple majority. The diet was the basis, and the knowledge transmitted through human culture, its empowerment.

As Mark Twain said, “Tell me where you get your corn pone and I’ll tell you what your opinions are.” In Chokenen society, no one controlled another’s food supply. With the profound knowledge of the natural world transmitted by culture, each Chokonen could secure their food independently.

This contrasts with the cultural forms of the Kiva People. The diet of the Mayan Adaptation requires villages because crops must be worked and land appor tinned. Food, land, and social power created a mixture that resulted in a social hierarchy where power is (as in the Pueblos today) based upon merit, birth, membership in tribal organizations and age.

The Pit-House People, being small groups, no doubt functioned along the lines of the Chokonen with emphasis on family politics, age. experience and wisdom.

The agriculturalist Kiva People who lived in pueblos show an increasing centralization of power compared to the forager. In the same manner, the rice diet of Asia shows the tendency. To grow rice in a populated country there must be a centralized power to administer the irrigation systems, as anyone who has irrigated off a community ditch readily understands. This centralist tendency must have existed also in the irrigated empires of the Indus Valley and the Tigris-Euphrates Valley of Sumeria.

In the present diet-ecology-social form on the San Francisco Watershed, food is almost entirely shipped in by diesel truck. Now, people work 2,000 hours annually and need constant medical attention. This diet is refined and produced by mass industrial production

The raw food material for the diet comes from industrial agriculture on a mass scale. Mass production requires the organization and control of a large mass of tractable people by huge social institutions over

which the mass of people have little or no control. It is freedom and an organic life traded for Cool Whip.

What one eats empowers whatever or whoever produces it. Ham and eggs for bteakiast requires domesticated animals which require fences and the Euro pean (aim system, which requires hierarchs to admini stcr the many plots with many farmers — as in monarchical Europe. Now, with technology shaping society, diet is even mine simplified than the Swiss lai in.

There are ten basic food plants, plus cattle, swine, sheep and fowl, feeding civilization. No longer can we forage over the hills lor the widely varied diet our physiology demands. We get the simplified food that is easily adapted to mass machine harvesting. Further, our conditioned tasle in food changes according to the changes in the technical processes of machinery used to produce it.

Few children would cat “old-fashioned” hand churned ice cream when the industrially produced skimmed milk or hydrogenated vegetable oil with a chemical ester flavor developed from coal tar is avail able. (The new “ice cream” has the proper “mouth feel.”) With the machine process, civilized people are conditioned to food that is the most technically efficient to refine.

What one eats determines one’s ethical relationship to the cosmos and shapes and determines power relationships within each culture.

The Coming of the New Order of Reality

The Pit-House People, the Kiva People and the Chokonen saw the Earth as a secure home, and they felt and practiced a kinship with the life around them. The Chokonen. finally, were confronted by strange in-vadeis who were qualitatively different than any native culture they had been exposed to. The invaders lived in the strange mental world of the Judeo-Christ-ian-Muslim tradition where life was bad (a veil of tears and suffering), and death was the portal to good (Heaven). Matter, the planet, living things and one’s body were of the Satanic realm, while pain, suffering and death for the Holy Cause were good—and would be rewarded in Heaven. Curiously, at the same time, these people were exploding out of Europe in a colonial expansion, bent upon stealing any gold, goods, land or resources anyone else in the world might have.

The Spanish immigrants on the Watershed were few in number because the Athebascan tribes had not yet been exterminated. The invaders set up a village agricultural herder dietary regime. They settled on the most fertile areas, the riparian habitats in the valley bottoms. The Spanish diet was basically the Mayan Adaptation diet borrowed from the Mexican Indians but they also exploited the fertility of the Earth for surpluses, to trade for a few industrial products. They nonetheless were close to a food self -sufficient cultural style. Social power in their communities was based on private property, age and social status.

The Spanish began the desertification of the Watershed by overgrazing with cattle, sheep and goats. They accomplished much of the destruction of the riparian habitat by grazing it out, clearing and burning. They also greatly altered the hydrology of the entire area by beginning to kill the beavers because they interfered with irrigation systems.

In the time of the Chokonen, there were beavers from the tops of the mountains of the Mogollon Rim. down the San Francisco and Gila Rivers, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Now. there is only one strong colony on the San Francisco drainage and a few weak remnant groups. Along with the beavers, riparian habitat (with minor exceptions) has been destroyed from here to Yuma, Arizona.

In the 1880s, the Texas cow herder group invaded with vast herds of cattle. Hungry for profits and free range grazing, they dealt the grass cover a blow from which it has never recovered. They translated the bio-

(3hi fije Supreme (Houri of Járiii»l| Columbia

(BETÖRE EHE MONOURABIE THE CHIEF JUSTICE)

native ORAL HiSToRY MS EuRoPEAN History ;jₘ:

Gerrie

“WE’RE GOING TO STOP AIL ACTIVITY, ALL LOGGING ANO MINING ON THE TERRITORY.”

keeps us from recognizing its horrendous character. We’ve murdered our sensory and emotional faculties, become numb, in exchange for a place in the system. On one trip here, some elders inquired as to why people were lining up at one spot. Food bank, they were told. When it was explained, the Indians, being characteristically generous, offered to bring down a truck-load of salmon co share.

“They should not go hungry, we have plenty.” Predictably, the state and food bank would have no part of it.

For those of us actively seeking some sort of radically different way to live, some genuine community to be part of, its often temting to romanticize what other people appear to have, to imagine going there to become “one of them.” Many, in fact, have tried this. Witness all the devotion to commodified, packaged versions of Native American culture (a big-money industry these days!). Buddhism or Hinduism. But for us, children of Western Industrial Civilization, this is false activity, a fetishization of a way of life that will

always be external to us. At worst it is a pseudo-consciousness, a form of escapism, that helps make our flattened lives more bearable without having to confront the source of that impoverishment. But the consumption of culture is just that— another form of consumerism. Attempts at beautifying the machine culture by hanging beads, feathers and plastic Buddhas (or crosses) on it only expose its ugliness all the more.

We can no more become Gitksan than we can become Hopi or Hindu. Though it’s easier to simply step into a read-made project or imitate one, the basis for that effort—history, land, experiences and the like—is for us rooted elsewhere. Certainly much can be learned through communication with people who still possess some of the “old ways”, but the challenge ahead of us is to find the courage to dream, initiate and realize our own projects, our own communities. Working with virtually nothing, we will have to create an entirely new reality, all our own, animated by our ‘ own deepest dreams, needs and desires. As we begin this effort we can come to an awareness of solidarity with others— Wet’suwet’en, Penan, wolves, rainforest, whales—who fight a common enemy and see that our struggles are also theirs. To this extent we are not “helping” other people or species (a patronizing and inherently authoritarian viewpoint), but

standing alongside

them in the fight against

the wicked machine civilization, the global Leviathan. We all live in occupied territory and only in the Liberated Zones, the land and spirit behind the blockades, can genuine freedom, wilderness and wildness flourish.

Power never abdicates. Colonial Courts

will not go against the Colonial Government and “return” Gitksan Wet’suwet’en territory. The blockades will resume. The Indians I spoke with seemed open to non-Indian assistance. Perhaps our most effective way co particicpate in the struggle will be to resist on the territory we know best: government and corporate offices and city streets (use your imagination! Ne holds barred! This is war!). As Don Ryan, President of the Chiefs’ Tribal Council suggested, “You ‘could take over your own government, sit in at their offices and -e’H come over and negotiate with you.”

Far more info or to help out (cash urgently needed for legal costs.) write or call:

Gitksan Wet^auwet’en Tribal Council-Vancouver 201* 788 Beatty St.

Vancouver, B.C. V6B 2M1

(604) 682–1990

or

Office of the Gitksan Wet’suwet’en Chiefs POB 229

Hazelton, B.C. VOJ IYO

To the Girksan Wet’suwet’en and most other native peoples, the meanings of terms such as “power”, “laws”, “authority” and “property” bear little resemblance to the modern political state’s codified interpretation of these words. Viewing these people through the smog-clouded lenses of industrial civilization inevitably leads to gross misinterpretation. This is precisely what the GW are struggling to overcome in the Courts and why there can never be any real justice there.

Conflict of interest? Not really. The interests of Capital and the interests of the State have never been in conflict!

Like Tribal Councils in the U.S., these were set up by the Colonial government so that they would have an “official”— i.e., Western-style, hierarchical—body to deal with on Indian matters. Unlike most U.S. Tribes, the Gitksan Wet’suwet’en subverted the Provincial intention by declaring the Council totally subservient to the Heriditary Chiefs.

MORE PLUNDER ON GW INDIAN TERRITORY

ALCAN (“ALCOA” in the U.S.) currently operates an aluminum smelter at Kitimat, B.C. Their sole reason for this location is the cheap power obtained from their dam on the Chaco River. This entire watershed was essentially given to ALCAN so they could produce their own power, thus cutting down their cost. Talk about a subsidy! They now want to build a second dam, called the Kemano Completion, in order to reduce costs further by selling the power elsewhere—like the U.S., for example The recently approved Free Trade (read: Plunder) agreement between the governments of the U.S. and Kanada will expedite this goal. If built, the dam will reduce current river flow to 12Z of its current volume, crippling the salmon runs. The GW plan to fight this monstrosity—which could begirt jjpon. We’ll keep you posted in these pages...

Note: ALCAN has similar schemes hatching in the Amazon as well.

THE ADDRESS OF THE GITKSAN AND WET’SUWET’EN HEREDITARY CHIEFS TO CHIEF JUSTICE McEACHERN OF THE SURPEME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. w

My name is Gisday Wa. I am a Wet’suwet’en Chief and a plaintiff in this case. My House owns territory in the Morice River and Owen Lake area. Each Wet’suwet’en plaintiff’s House owns similar territories. Together they own and govern the Wet’suwet’en territory. As an example, the land on which this courthouse stands is owned by the Wet’suwet’en Chief, Gyolugyct, in Kyas Yax, also known as Chief Woos’ House.

My name is Delgam Uukw. I am a Gitksan Chief and a plaintiff in this case. My House owns territories in the Up- ‘ per Nass Valley. Each Gitksan plaintiff’s House owns similar territories. Together, the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en Chiefs own and govern the 22,000 square miles of Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en territory.

For us, the ownership of territory is a marriage of the Chief and the land. Each Chief has an ancestor who encountered and acknowledged the life of the land. From such encounters come power. The land, the plants, the animals and the people all have spirit—they all must be shown respect. That is the basis of our law.

The Chief is responsible for ensuring that all the people in his House respect the spirit in the land and in all living things. When a Chief directs his House properly and the laws are followed, then that original power can be recreated. That is the source of the Chief’s authority. That authority is what gives the 54 plaintiff Chiefs the right to bring this action of behalf of their House members—all Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en people. That authority is what makes the Chiefs the real experts in this case.

My power is carried in my House’s histories, songs, dances and crests. It is recreated at the feast when the histories are told, the songs and dances performed and the crests displayed. With the wealth that comes from respectful use of the territory, the House feeds the name of the Chief in the feast hall. In this way, the law, the Chief, the territory and the feast become one. The unity of ths Chief’s authority and his House’s ownership of its territory are witnessed and thus affirmed by the other Chiefs at the feast.

By following the law, the power flows from the land to the people through the Chief; by using the wealth of the territory, the House feasts its Chief so he can properly fulfill the law. This cycle has been repeated on my land for thousands of years. The histories of my House are always being added to. My presence in this courtroom today will add to my Houses’s power, as it adds to the power of the other Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en Chiefs who will appear here or who will witness the proceedings. All of our roles,

including yours, will be remembered in the histories that will be tcid by my grandchildren. Through the witnessing of all the histories, century after century, we have exercised our jurisdiction.

Th® Europeans did not want to know our histories; they did not respect our laws or our ownership of our territories. This ignorance and this disrespect continues. The former Delgam Uukw Albert Tait, advised the Chiefs not to come into this court with their regalia and their crest-blankets. Here, he said, the Chie^^^L not receive the proper respect from the government, if they are wearing the their regalia, then the shame of the disrespect will be costly tc erase. ‘

Officials who are not accountable to this land, its laws or its owner# have atteapted w displace our laws with legislation and regulations. Thu politician* have consciously blocked each path within their system that we take to assert our title. The courts, until perhaps now, have similarly settled our exiStance. Ih your legal system, how will you deal with the idea that the Chiefs own the land? The attempts tc quash our laws and extinguish our system have been unsuccessful. Gisday Wa has not been extinguished.

If the Canadian legal system has not recognised our ownership and jurisdiction but at the same time not extinguished it, what has been done with it? Judges and legislators have taken the reality of aboriginal title as we know it and tried to wrap it in something called aboriginal rights. An aboriginal rights package can be put on the shelf to be forgotten or to be endlessly debated at Constitutional Conferences. We are not interested in asserting aboriginal rights—we are here to discuss territory and authority. When this case ends an« the package has been unwrapped, it will have to be our ownership and our jurisdiction under our law that is or. the table.

Our histories show that whenever new people came to this land, they had to follow its laws if they wished to stay. The Chiefs who were already here had the responsibility to teach the law to the newcomers. They then waited to see if the land was respected. If it was not, the newcomers had to pay compensation and leave. The Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en have waited and observed the Europeans for a hundred years. The Chiefs have suggested t^a# the newcomers may want to stay on their <fca»»s and in their towns and villages, but beyoiwl the farms fences the lend belongs to the Chiefs. Once this has been recc^fi^gd, the court can get on with MM!«*& jMftft which is to establish a process for the chiefs’ and newcomers’ interests to be settled. , ‘ ’

The purpose of this case then, 1# to find a process to place Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en ownCoifiP aⁿd jurisdiction within the context of Canada. We «» not seek a decision as to whether our system might coirtTnue or not. It will continue.

FROM THE BETTER MERER THAN LATENT VEPT.

Saul T.

Strawberry sabotage

Brentwood, CA November 30, 1987

A group calling itself the “Mindless Thugs Against Genetic Engineering” sabotaged a test of the genetically engineered pieudomonu bacteria called “Frostban”. The substance is intended for use in helping strawberries and other cold-sensitive crops survive frosts by inhibiting the formation of ice crystals. This was the third attempt at open-air testing of this bacteria by AGS, the company which “developed” it. And thus far, all three have been trashed. In the first two actions, strawberry and potato plants were pulled-up. This time salt and chemicals were dumped for a more lasting effect.

Ruining these open-air tests is crucial to stopping the manipulation of life through genetic engineering. The environmental effects of releasing a totally foreign organism are incalculable and potentially irreversible. It is equivalent to a creature from another planet infesting the earth: it may have no natural predators or control mechanism. This is potentially big business, but for now, research money must come largely from investors. The sabotage will keep investors away and ruin test results necessary to collect data on the product’s effectiveness. It’s not cheap and no farmer or ag-chem company will pay for something that may not work.

In the previous two sabotages, as with this one, the tests continued despite the fact that no reliable data could be collected from plants that were so damaged. The reason for this is that the tests were also to set a precedent for open-air releases of g.e. altered organisms. The company firmly denies this, but their continuance of the tests proves their true intentions. This test was delayed by two weeks due to the sabotage.

Following is a description of the action from one of the saboteurs:

“We had the area scoped really good, maps and everything. We were dropped-off about a quarter mile from the site and hiked across fields and orchards to get there. Really eerie—you

could see the massive spotlight for miles and even in the orchard behind it we felt exposed. We jumped from one tree shadow to another and kept low. There were six of us, each with a huge sack of salt except for one who had a 5-gallon fire extinguisher full of ammonia. The plot was about football-field sized and divided up into sections. After the last two sabotages they put an 8’ chainlink fence around it, brought in the massive generator-powered spotlight and two guards in a trailer. We could see the guards sitting inside playing cards. We each had our pre-selected section and we spread out along the fence. Then the first group was over and that was our cue. It was really scary, like breaking-in to a prison camp or something. In a second everyone was at their part of the plot systematically pouring salt up and down the rows of plants. The light inside the guardshack went out. It was so tense! But everyone kept calm and methodically finished their tasks within two or three minutes. And all the time that blazing spotlight was on us—it felt so exposed! Then everyone was done and we bolted for the fence, up and over. Just to get in their face a little bit more, we left the fire extinguisher with an Earth First! sticker on it standing in the middle of the field. We each had “buddies” and so we split in different directions in groups of two. We all reached the pick-up spot and the waiting car within a few minutes of each other, hopped in and split. We figured the cops could be there pretty quick so we headed straight for the hi-way. Along the way, we switched shoes and tossed the old ones into a dense brush field miles from the site. A few minutes later we were on the highway blending in with the anonymous stream of commuter traffic. We were never so glad to be part of rush-hour!”

The action received major news coverage, most of it looking very bad for AGS and biotech in general. In one article, the company stated that because of the sabotage they may have to go to Australia or Italy in order to continue the tests. They were assured by an anti-biotech spokesman, however, that equally fierce resistance would be forthcoming from there

as well. At the present, there is talk of AGS pulling-out of Frostban research due to lack of investor support and funding.

Below is the communique sent by the saboteurs to the media and anti-genetic engineering activists:

IN THE EARLY HOURS OF MONVW, NOVEMBER 30 BENEATH BLINDING SPOTLIGHTS, UNDER THE NOSES OF TWO GUARDS AND DESPITE AN &-FOOT FENCE WE ENTERED THE TEST SITE. THE STRAWBERRY PLANTS WERE COMPLETELY COVERED WITH 250 LBS OF SALT AND A LARGE FIRE EXTINGUISHER FULL OF AMMONIA. IN ADDITION, AN UNIDENTIFIED SLOW ACTING HERBICIDE WAS RANDOMLY APPLIED. THESE ACTIVITIES ARE AN ESCALATION OF TACTICS IN RESPONSE TO YOUR CONTINUED INSISTENCE ON ENDANGERING ALL LIFE ON THIS PLANET WITH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED MADNESS.

THE ANTI-FREEZING PROPERTIES OF SALT WILL INVALIDATE ANY TESTS ON THIS LAND TO PROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FROST BAN. THE TOXIC PROPERTIES OF SALT WILL KILL THE STRAWBERRY PLANTS IN A FEW DAYS AND PREVENT FUTURE PLANTS FROM THRIVING ON THIS FARMER’S LAND. FARMERS ALLOWING THEIR LAND TO BE USED FOR SUCH TESTS MUST CONSIDER THEIR LAND AS A TARGET AND MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR INTRODUCING “CRIMINAL ELEMENTS” INTO THEIR COMMUNITIES.

MINDLESS THUGS AGAINST GENETIC ENGINEERING

WE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO SUCCEED—EVER.

BIOTECH RESISTANCE IN VEST GERMANY

According to a communique published in Resistance No. 11, a group calling itself “Rote Zora” carried out an explosive attack on Gesellschaft fuer Biotecnologische For-shung mbH (Biotechnical Research Co. Ltd.) in Braunschweig, Germany. The attack occured on July 21, 1986. The company is doing research that will be used for Nazi-type social control. Resistance, Documents and Analyses of the Illegal Front is available from Friends of Durruti, pob 790, Station A, Vancouver, B.C. Canada, V6C 2N6.

TREE SPIKING TECHNICAL UPDATE: LONGBÜTTING

Longbutting In many recent spiking incidents, trees spiked with even very large de-headed nails were eventually cut. The method used to circumvent the sabotage efforts, called longbutting, involves first locating the nails with the use of a metal detector and marking them with paint. Loggers are then able to cut either very high or extremely low to avoid the nails. In the later case--where a nail has been placed at full arms reach, say—the lower six feet of the tree is lopped off and left for firewood cutters.

This counter-technique has been used primarily where nails were few and unremovable and metal. This suggests counter-counter-tac tics.

Undetectable, inn-metallic “spikes” are an obvious measure. These have already been used or threatened in many areas. Ceramic “spikes” which can be dril-led-in with a hand brace and bit have been suggested, but discarded test-drilling cores have already damaged mill equipment and are canmonly available around major mining and construction sites. Check around abandoned mining areas. These rockcores range from l”-2ⁿ in diameter and j should be broken into managable 3”-4” J segments. Large auger bits can often be ® found cheaply in second-hand stores. Sharpen the cutting edges before use. x Drill the hole, collect all the shavings^ to leave no trace, insert the rock-core » then glue bark over the disturbed area * with seme of the commonly available glue made for rough surfaces. Drilling involves considerable effort: plan 4–8 cores per session. Notify the world via an anonymous ccranLinique (NOTE! be sure to follow appropriate security measures as detailed in Ecodefense or similar publications! Huge rewards are up for anyone turning-in a spiker and the forces of waste and desolation are just waiting to hang semeone).

Even with undetectable spikes the possibility exists that the loggers may still choose to fell the trees and cut off the whole lower end. Though extremely costly, don’t put it—or anything—past them. A few well marked (with paint or ribbon) spikes placed high with the use of climbing spurs or perhaps a makeshift ladder may deter them from attempting this last

tactic.

Sneaky Driller

With “regular” spiking it may be wise to eschew the mega-spikes (10”-12”) in favor of 60d (read “sixty Denny”) or 8” helix spiral nails ( helix’ are smaller in diameter than “cannon” nails of similar length and have a twist which makes them virtually impossible to remove). The advantages are numerous. 60d’s may be driven by even an inexperienced or weak-armed spiker (a 2-31b sledge hanmer ‘with an 18” handle should still be used, however). For the same effort many more nails can be driven, thus allowing several per tree and foiling long-butting efforts. 60d’s are cheaper per case than large spikes and are nearly ubiquitous at limber stores. Finally, smaller diameter nails are quieter (though by no means QUIET!) to poind in and can be de-headed easily with a small bolt-cutters.

This last point may hold the key. Timber sales have been stopped when even small spikes proved unremovable after deheading. Pound than in to V from flush, chop the head and pound in the remaining length. 24” or 30” cutters work well for 60d and 8” helix nails. Avert your face when clipping as the heads can really fly! Taiwanese bolt cutters can be purchased for under $20 at discount variety stores. US-made cutters will cost $80-$100+. Opt for the cheapos and avoid over-stressing them. If it becomes necessary to dump them, the loss will be minimal and even cheapos will last for many, many boxes of nails. By the way, always buy your nails by the case (501bs). They run about half the price you’d otherwise pay per pound.

This technique of many small deheaded nails—possibly combined with non-metallic cores—just may be the cure for your long-butting ills! Any field info may be sent c/o this paper for publication.

WRITINGS OF THE VANCOUVER FIVE STATEMENTS OF RESISTANCE

Till*

Litton Systems (Canada) Ltd., Rexdale Ont., Oct. 14, 1982

rM« he movie “The ■ ’ Squamish Five” H portrays five people in a way which takes the reality of their struggle for freedom and justice and turns It into a thinly disguised

adventure story to be consumed without question. It Is an attempt to trivialize and misrepresent the lives of Ave real people, people who felt strongly enough about the Injustice of our present society to risk action. It creates cardboard cut-out characters who play out the roles of “psychotic revolutionary”, “brooding purist”, ‘dumb punk”, “cold-hearted politico” and their “naive Idealistic victim” without ever examining the politics of their actions, or even the very human reasons why people, when faced with the threat of nuclear extinction, environmental collapse, or violent pornography would choose to attack the structures responsible for manufacturing these threats. The actions which they carried out are presented as the result of frustration on their part, which etiectively takes the focus oti of the crimes of the corporations attacked and condescendingly puts the blame on these Ave people for being naive idealists who “took the wrong path.”

Acts of resistance such as the Litton bombing involve a question oiresponslbültiesand consequences. These actions are initiated as part of a process of affecting changes when other methods have been tried and either failed or resulted in token accomplishments. They are a conscious, thought out political action and are not done as a result of frustration. The people who risk their lives to do such actions — and In the case of an accident the lives ol others—are not “extremists” or “terrorists”. They are Individuals whose decision to act for the quality and continued existenceof Ufe/earth far outweigh the imposition of man-made laws.

Yet the film stops at a critical point: before the trials, before the “trial by media”Cin which the Ave were ‘convicted’ by the press without evidence or rebuttal), before the obscene

ON FRAGMENTATION’

ANO G^vj/yH

Walking attentively down the canyon when suddenly I spot the enemy, so obvious and so much bigger than us! I control my breath, ready my sling, bend over to pick up the only suitable stone in sight. I briefly feel its aerodynamic roundness in the palm of my hand before—

Fragmentation! Breaking up along a hundred unseen fissures, it crumbles in my grasp, escapes in a shower between by fingers.

Arguments over a uniting strategy, a unified media image, a limit on size, while the global Kraken devours the last of the wild and sacred places. It’s not for us to adopt a single platform. Organizations do that. We are a many-headed serpent between the polyester sheets of the dominant paradigm. As a movement we have to change, evolve, spread out to society’s very fringe. No, it’s not up to Earth First! to impose a limited concensus or limit growth. EF! is out of control! And isn’t it great! A wild spirit unchained, a co-enzyme released to accelerate the cleansing, to aid the Earth-body in its self healing. A catalytic enzyme that will mutate and spread beyond the constraints of even our best of intentions. As Jim Morrison so succinctly put it, “Wake up!”

The many varied entities of radical environmentalism serve as more intimate clans within the greater tribe. But educational, musical, artistic and even legal personifications can have as radical an effect as more stereotypical monkeywrenching. If “Earth First!” is a priority rather than the name of a group, the measure cannot be made in arrests, monetary damage to machinery or the always temporary victories—but in total visceral, spiritual, and active response to the common threat.

prison terms Imposed on them, before the repression which descended upon all political activists In Canada, and before the betrayal of the rest by Julie; all of which would politicize the movie and betray the premise of both the “innocent victim” and the “rebels without brains’. The events following their arrest, their treatment by the so-called Justice system and the lengthy prison terms are evidence that their actions were taken very seriously by the Canadian state; and that this system has no intention of budging Insofar as their vital interests tie profit) are concerned. And If the system is unwilling or unable to make the fundamental and far-reaching changes needed to end the present devastation of our earth and people, what option Is there tor those who care enough to attempt change? By leaving out evidence of the unchangeable nature of the system, the movie isolates the direct actions carried out and makes them seem futile, naive and unnecessary. The context in which they were carried out, the impasse hit by the massive legal movements against these threats and the Ave’s history of legal activism are all missing

Imprisonment does not have to be the consequence of taking direct action, although It Is a very real possibility. People should leam from the actions of others — both the mistakes and the steps forward.

Some of us were able to see an advance copy of the film, we were so upset with the way that the events were portrayed that we felt something must be done. With this In mind we are reprinting the sentencing statements and writings of the five to allow those who took direct action to speak for themselves.

On Fragmentation and Growth

By Lone Wolf Circles

We must at all times be conscious of our motives, true to the cause of a suffering Earth. Ecotage should be understood as more than a viable tool of resistance, being a rite of passage for many of us and a new ceremonial icon for our movement. The monkeywrench is passed around the circle where we have pledged to make our decisions, a tool of our interconnectedness like the medicine pipe, the carved staff, the feather of the eagle. The sacred heart of resistance. A choice.

There is no fear of our commitment being diluted with growth. The media beasts will make sure that it is the most radical and sensational face that the world knows, a banner under which only a minority will ever do their work for the Earth. Faced with the death of the planet-body, more and more antibodies will arise, and the willingness to face the cancer head-on will always be the measure of “avant garde”. Resisting, loving, laughing, dancing the ghost dance, enzymes arming the desires of the Earth organism.

We only seem to “lead” because we cannot wait for others. We dream of an unfragmented world, a healed world! We dream of the sacred adventure. Manifest! Create wilderness! Live the dream! Never relegate it to the paleolithic past or the far distant future. Our dream is now, right here, the natural human spirit unleashed! The world endlessly made wild!

In our fight against the burgeoning monoculture, let’s not adopt their sameness. EF! needs to be diversity with cooperation. It needs no managing, united beneath the soil, like intertwining roots, by the resolute standard of “no compromise!” Deep Ecology and civil disobedience, poetry and ecotage.

The Vancouver 5—aka Direct Action, Squamish 5—carried out a series of sabotage actions (anti-war, feminist and ecological arson, bombings and theft) in the early ’80’s. Eventually caught, they all received serious prison terms though two are now out on parole. Recently a film was made by the mainstream media (CBC) and the result is as would be expected. At left is a review of the film done by supporters of the Five. It was originally printed along with Writings and Statements of the Five and passed out at showings of the film. At the Vancouver opening, officials blocked-off the first 20 rows of seats in the theater to keep people out of throwing range after a fan in Toronto hit the screen with a paint bomb. Movie-goers were also treated to a taste of police state paranoia when they were frisked and had their bags checked before entering the theater.

We’re printing the review to warn potential viewers of the character of this film and hopefully encourage a total boycott. In the words of a “5” supporter: “Audiences nationwide will be treated to this pretense of a movie as the state tries to bang a few nails into the coffin of militant resisance. But the coffin is empty!” For a real view of the Vancouver 5 write for a copy of the Writings and Statements of the Five at Toronto Anarchist Black Cross, POB 6326, Station A, Toronto, Ontario M5W 1P7 Canada or Bulldozer Prison News Service, POB 5052, Stn A Toronto M5W 1W4 Send a buck or whatever for postage and printing if you can.

Hopefully, future issues of Live Wild- will have more information on the Five and their actions. Especially important would be discussion on the potential and limitations of the types of actions they carried out. For now, a few warnings based on mistakes made by the Five may help current monkeywrenchers avoid the same fate.

Bad security coupled with intense police surveillance seems to have been their downfall. Police broke into their houses in order to plant bugs and tap phones and in this way gained considerable information and evidence when the Five talked a little too openly. As well, phone booths near their homes were bugged as were their cars (!). At times they were followed by as many as 5 cars so that no single car would be an obvious “tail”. In some cases helicopters were used as well. In order to accumulate more evidence against them, authorities “allowed” them to do firebombings, auto thefts and other crimes without busting them. The state also gained considerable damning evidence when one of the group cracked under the extreme psychological and emotional torture all prisoners—especially political ones—go through in court and prison at the hands of the state.

Some lessons are obvious here: Don’t assume that because you’ve committed a crime with someone, and not been busted, that they’re OK or that the cops are not on to you. Keep everything on a NEED-TO-KNOW basis— the fewer people who know the fewer can talk. Follow the rule: “Wanna talk? Take a walk!” i.e., no conversations indoors, on the phone or in a stationary spot.

The “hawksfell” that holds this skald’s pen also carries the tools of the warrior, to wrench “wound-dew” from the rapist machine, “feed the ravens” with their inequity, “sate the eagles” with vanquished despoilers and the convulsions of our own sacrificed hearts.

Fragments... I bend over aga^n to gather up the particles of crumbled rock, and surprise! The stone made whole again! It fits snugly in my sling. We must always follow our mystical insight with direct personal action, yet never forget the spiritual heart of this vital resistance, our sacrement...

We must make sure there is no fragmentation... No temptation to retreat. No reason

ATTACK OF THE MERINGUE GANGUE

by Chaco

ear God...Modern man “as separated himself —“ from nature and the reI su^ts have been devastating for y / | the Earth. Please forgive us for these sins. Please help us remember that You have given us the earth for our own benefit. Guide us as we try to be better stewards of the earth. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

Three hundred pious men and a few women, all dressed alike, stood in the ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel in Seattle, heads bowed, self-righteously assuring themselves that god had indeed forgiven them, so they could get on with the business of raping and pillaging the earth.

Unfortunately, this lot of humanity, brain-dead from birth, make up the Western Forestry and Conservation (sic) Association, an association of some of ”

the biggest and most vile forest-kil- J^**

ling bureaucrats and capitalists from the U.S. s”

and And was

Canada, this their

annual /

convention. /

Hav⁻ Z S I

ing snuck / / / I

to the front / ‘ / l>

row during / /I

the prayer, I tried to keep I

from choking at r

the immense banner be- t

hind the stage. Proudly displaying both the U.S. and Canadian symbols of nationalism and plunder, the banner declared, “ONE FOREST UNDER TWO FLAGS.”

Sitting across the aisle from me, also in the front row, was a man who appeared to be somewhat different than everyone else here. I noticed he kept his face covered with one hand, and seemed to be carefully guarding a brown paper package...

First to speak was a representative from MacMillian-Bloedel (MacBlow) in B.C. (note: M-B is the company that is trying so badly to log Meares Island, among other places...). Those of you who have been to B.C., I’d like

you to be sure and visualize the “working forests” to which he often refers... the clearcuts, the even-age small trees being pushed down by giant dozers into huge piles, the stench of pulp mills; this aspect of B.C. is difficult to forget. .

Mr. McBlow; (condensed) “There are two fac- / tors which are threats to our industry. The/

first is economic, and this is the ation: At most, there are only 40 of old growth left. Therefore, we look elsewhere for profits... Pulp

situ-years must is the

wave of the future!... But we’re discovering that we can make pulp from lots of kinds of trees!... Getting more out of j processing our forest pulp products / should be fun and a challenge!... I

“Export logs subsidize the whole show. We wouldn’t be here without exports... One threat that’s happenin. is we’re being undersold by Third World rainforest exporting coun- j

tries... However, a bigger threat /

is what I call ‘single use activ- / ists’... I

These people don’t want ‘working forests.’ They want it all for themselves— What they don’t realize is that we’re growing low-cost houses for their children. We’re creating the oxygen they breathe. We’re absorbing C02 from their urban

automobile lifestyles. We’re making the wilderness accessible bo them with our logging roads. But some people just don’t seem to appreciate our industry!

“There’s over 200 environmental groups in B.C. and they have some pretty fancy funding... They engage in fear tactics, and they distort the facts... These are people who are afraid of an uncertain future, a paved-over world. They fear the dying seas, holes in the ozone layer, global warming... Obviously, this is a vocal minority who is simply lacking information. Ours is a sustainable industry and we’ll be growing houses

for years to come...

“We just have to educate these ) people... They’re just like the hippies in the ’60’s.

They hated us then, but 10 years later came to us begging for jobs (heh.heh, he —XI. snickers)...

Speaking of jobs , we currently employ 79,000. That’s 1,900 new jobs from last < year, for 12.6 bil-

lion dollars... So i get out there and ed-

ucate these people, let’s get rid of this threat. But don’t count « on the mass media to help

you—it’s not a vice. (AZ ZecuZ on iom&tlv.ng!).

“Good luck and you.”

public ser-we agtee

god be wich

Ready for more?’ Can you y take any more? Next up L J was A¹ Wesc’ DePuty Chief

of the U.S. Forest Service, straight from Washington, “.¿/J D.C. Mr. Bureaubabble a himself, he too seemed to be concerned with infor-

. mation:

“Essential relevant infor-mation—that’s the key. Data is simply unprocessed information. Analyze (anal-ize?) and interpret this data and it becomes information. Good decision making is based on information which comes from data. Essential relevant information used to not be clearly identified, then it was functional.

Now, resource policy management is

based on essential information the

resource data gathering. In Forest Service, good com-

**^~ _ muni-

cation is as important as accurate essential information, relevant data and appropriate decision making...

“Now the Forest Service is better informed. But so is everyone else... Information clearly communicated is what good decision making is based on. Federal land management used to be based on less information than is used today. Today that’s still true. But today we have more relevant information...

“YOU PEOPLE ARE TERRORISTS!!!”

—interrupted a cry from the back of the room. “You call us terrorists, but you’re the real terrorists!!” With that, a group of obviously uninformed Single Use Activists marched on stage with banners: “Save The Old Growth” and “GO CLEARCUT IN HELL!” One SUA grabbed the mic and proclaimed “Earth First!” The terrorist accusations continued from the back of the room. A list of the species endangered by their logging was recited along with an indictment of their activity. After the SUAs left, timber industry lawyer Ann ForestBurns (her real name! No shit!) congratulated the audience on their “selfcontrol.”

And the babble continued...

“Now we have a system to centralize information about more relevant decentralized information. We’re keeping the lines of communication open. Information is being considered... (this goes on for two more pages, but you must by now get the picture. Anyone who’s ever tried to communicate with a Freddie bureaufat can clearly see that the shit comes all the way from the top...).

Next, Brian Boyle, head of the Washington State Dept, of Natural Resources, took the stand. He thanked Al for drawing the heat off him. He was glad the obnoxious environmentalists had chosen Al’s speech to interrupt instead of his... SORRY BOYLE! WRONG AGAIN! In a flash, the man who had up till then been unobtrusively taking notes in the front row leaped co the podium. Concealed beneath the note paper he held a green “eco-meringue” pie (homemade, even!) and in one swift move the pastry was launched toward Boyle’s face! Only the piester’s inexperience saved Mr. Stump from total humiliation as the poorly-aimed pie splattered harmlessly on the stage behind him. It did graze his shoulder, though, and within seconds after the piester exited through a side door Boyle appeared to regain his composure and resume his speech.

Brushing the crumbs from his suit he began, “That is the type of free speech

Si activity we must learn to accept when we & live in a democratic free speech society. ■ It is good that people can express themselves in many ways and this type of freedom of speech should be encouraged.” Boyle is slick, a good actor and politician, but he was clearly near the bursting point inside. He continues, “But if he had hit me, I would’ve been out the door after him. And I guarantee you, I would’ve caught him!”

Well, Boyle, the Revolutionary Ecoterorist Pie Brigade plans to give you—and your cronies—a chance to live up to that promise in the near future. Beware! We’re armed and delicious! If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen! Prepare to eat humble pie! There will be an uprising and you will have egg (meringue) on your face unless you change your ways! Remember, when you least expect it...

TOXIC SHOP SYNDROME: MALLS REACH PLAGUE PROPORTIONS, PEOPLE GET SICK

By Gila Trout

Either way, full of us cruising the Bellis Fair lot, looking for a puking space.

“MALLS MAKE ME PUKE///” Hundreds of shoppers and their children, while waiting in line to see Santa Naus, heard this cry and looked up just in time to see someone tossing their cookies (or purple yogurt, as it was) all over the mall floor, right in front of Santa. SHOPPING MAKES ME SICK!! Bleahhh... green cottage cheese splatters all over—there goes another one. THE EARTH IS VYING MV YOU PEOPLE ARE SHOPPING!!! And up came yellow jelly donut...“watch it, ma’am, you just strolled your baby through a pile of puke.”

Saturday, December 3^rd, the Bay Area Women’s Action Group sponsored “No Shopping As Usual Day”, and shoppers in Bellis Fair Maul heard about it. I don’t know exactly what made us do it. Maybe it was just the opportunity to express our truest feelings about the Christmas season (queasy season). Maybe it was because someone dared us to. Or maybe it was because the thought of act-

ly finding a place ecac (a common

to stop our vehicle, we were convinced we wouldn’t

it made us laugh so hard.

the morning of the 3^rd found a van We had lots of competition. Finaleven need to take the syrup of ip-

drug found in any drug store, used to induce vomiting). The action started when astic-

«OPERTY fs THEFT IS^JS PROPER

ker brigade plastered the mall with hundreds of subversive These same trouble-makers took frequent pit stops to drop compressed dried sponges into many of the public toilets.

(We’d like to thank the CIA for that helpful

messages. ¹¹ 1

wh i ned, e

“Where’s security?” Well, we^\ took that as our cue to leave, and believe

guess our mamas didn’t raise

In the meantime, the Barfing included purple cabbage, red donuts, boysenberry

us right?

Brigade met for and green M&Ms,

me,

we wanted to by then.

That place is real-

Iv gross. ^

nauseous

But on our way out, we saw ^^»feffiai

Santa Claus, and, oh god! , it was just too much.

Things really began coming up then, and in case “ it wasn’t demonstative enough for everyone to un-

»“3

hint).

lunch, yellow

which jelly

yogurt, and spiruliria-colored

again) But ad found

C I** c’

we

y°i

Tt. (I think I’m feeling

don’t worry—it wasn’t exactly wasted food—we kit all in a dumpster. We chowed down in the midst \ of thousands of consumers who were shoving hot \ dogs, fried chicken, fudge, chow mein, and ice \ cream—all of which they actually paid for!—

^\ greedily into their gross demanding jaws.

hen we did it.

Jonesians, we passed

Feeling like a bunch of Jim the bottle around, each taking a

swig. We positioned ourselves in a prime place, where would be visible to the most eaters. And waited. Nervous-*’~r »1 ~^ly ■ we wondered who would lose their lunch first.

Turns out it was the purple yogurt. We

derstand, we began to spew our views—at the top of our lungs—as well (in be tween barfing bouts). In spite of that, it was astounding how many A people ed oblivious to the upheaval going on around them. Of those who nt^kticed,

seem- * most were

fairly disgusted, a few were actually more upset with the photographer, and our only supporters

seemed to be a few teenage boys.

When Security showed up, we knew it was time to

split for real. We all ran different directions, but alas, Steve got nabbed. Unfortunately for

the cops, however, Steve didn’t have to really puke until he got into their office.

^quickly unrolled our signs (Ua£L& /make. me. i^ck! etc.) and smiled for I the camera as purple puke went /flying everywhere. I lost it a mo-Iment later, and I mean, I felt relally sick. Malls will do it to ya.

And there I was, puking my guts up and feeling really bad about the maul and all.

called, and amusingly enough.

The cops were

the cop who showed up was the same one who had thrown Steve out of an-

other demonstration the night before. Some people can’t be tamed. He was released with a promise that they d be mailing him a ticket for trespassing. Will the REAL trespassers please throw themselves up—and °“r ‘ I think this is an action that everyone should experience—ONCE! The message offered is

to the point, don’t you think? And believe me, you’re guaranteed to get a lot of laughs out of it, at least before

so..

if not during! So remember...“DON’T GROW UP, THROW

UP/” -----GROSS ACTION GROUP (G.A.G.).

when a woman began to push me! (no sympathy...) “Get out of here, she

i Finally!!!

a WING RR! 3

IKMMaU&esr’ -BREWING FASCISM / * (N the BLOOD OF

M IC ARAG UA ligh

$M

Sheriff Jim Weed

Okanogan County Sheriff Jim Weed is just one more in a long line of two-bit backwoods cops who’s megalomania and political aspirations have finally found their vehicle of upward mobility: eco-activist bashing. It seems wherever we go, some pig-shit-head authority figures that he’ll become “the regional expert on eco-tage”,or some such self-created title, by compiling information on us and then selling himself to either the Feds or Industry. It hasn’t worked yet, but they keep on trying... With Weed it seems he’s trying to make brownie (-nose) points with Timber. As well, he’s cashing-in on the political economy of Drug Hysteria, skimming his little piece of the pie by using highly repressive (and well-publicized) tactics to harrass and scare small-time dope growers and anyone else he doesn’t like. At the Earth First! protest at the Okanogan National Forest H.Q. this summer, he had two dozen people arrested just for the sake of gathering files. In another truly sleezy act, he concocted a story for the media about EF!ers engaging in a gun battle at a logging site. It was timed with the WA EF! Fall Equinox Rendezvous in the Okanogan N.F. The gathering was small—20 at most—and quiet and no one left the site during the weekend except for short hikes. The shooting incident may actually have happened—but not with EF!ers. With the statewide media coverage and its constant (poor) attempts to associate the incident with EF!, it really does seem to have been a set-up (with the full cooperation of the Wenatchee World, of course). The following gems are excerpted from a speech delivered to the WA Contract Loggers’ Association in September 1988 and reprinted in the November 1988 issue of Loggers World. The entire speech would be worth reprinting if space allowed it. This excerpted version originally appeared in the Winter Solstice issue of the WA EF! Newsletter ( $1 pob 2962 Bellingham, WA 98227).

sheriff explains ins and outs of ecoterrorism

“They use their money for training new volunteers on what they call ‘Ecotage’ which is ecological sabotage. They coined the phrase trying to legitimize their otherwise illegitimate practices.

They use this money to take people out and teach them how to spike trees. They teach and train them on how not to get caught. They’ve got nothing but time to waste. We had several of them who camped overnight after our ‘battle’. They were in the county for a month that we know of.”

“Earth First uses this money to teach people how to sneak through the woods in the middle of the night. They buy them equipment, they buy them everything from climbing spikes to spikes to put in trees. They use ceramic to avoid detection by metal detectors.”

“These people have come up with a lot of different little tricks. They’ve got publications — one is called Earth First! The Radical Environmental Journal. It’s published ou of Tucson, AZ. And then they have a book they call Ecodefense which is a sabotage book that’s basically designed and written for saboteurs. It tells how to sabotage everything from high leads to helicopters to Cats.”

“...They show you where to hit Cat engines without taking any guards off and break the block.”

“There is another direction that Earth First has that’s kind of an endangerment to Okanogan County. We’re a big livestock area and we have probably 25,000 head of cattle grazing on national forest land in the summer. This ‘No Bullshit on Public Lands’ means just that. They want all livestock grazing off the national forest, off the state forest, and basically off any rangeland. So, if you want to raise a cow, I guess you have to do it in your basement. At any rate, they may be Involved in shooting livestock.”

“I just arrested some people the other day, or my deputies did, up in a forest area where there is a lot of logging and theft. In the searching of their homes with a search warrant , we found them placarded with Earth First posters.”

“They had pictures of damage done to helicopters by Earth First and big signs saying ‘We Win Again’, ‘Earth First’, ‘Protect Your Mother Earth’, all this junk. They don’t want livestock grazing on the national forest, but they’re more than willing to kill and eat it while it’s out there.”

“They call the Federal Government people (Forest Service people) ‘Freddies.’ It’s a term derived from the words, ‘Forest rape eagerly done and done in endless succession.”

“Basically what they are doing is taking old protest symbols from throughout history and prostituting them for their own views.”

‘Their motto is ‘No Compromise in the Events (sic) of Mother Earth.’ You’ll see them all at protests and so forth wearing stickers that say ‘No Deal, Asshole’ on them and that’s their big thing. They have big signs that say this.” “They are growing in numbers by leaps and bounds (!). I had never heard of Earth First until the day after the 4^th of July weekend, 1988. I had turned 38 the day before, was in a good mood, things had calmed down from the 4^th of July.” “I came to work and the Forest Service called and said, ‘We may have a little minor demonstration down here. We expect a maximum of 8 outside and if it gets really wild, maybe 20 people.”

“About 124 showed up and instead of carrying signs when they demonstrate, they bring sacks of manure and they throw it all over the carpet in the Forest Service office. They go in with tubes of super glue all prepared. This is very carefully orchestrated.”

They spent 3 days planning these ‘action days’, they call them. They pour super glue down into computers, and just basically trash the Forest Service’s office. The Forest Service has a policy has a policy of letting them do that.” “If they pour super glue in my computer, somebody’s butt is going to land in jail. The Forest Service wants this big ‘Everybody loves Smokey’ image out there. These people don’t love Smokey and the. Forest Service hasn’t awakened to that fact yet.” “There’s a feeling in the Forest Service that if we don’t look and we just stay out of their way. Earth First will just go away.”

“They started out with 3 people. A couple of years ago, they had a couple hundred. It is now nationwide. We’re having the same kinds of things going on in the Virginia Pine Forests. Louisiana has some of it going. Region 6, which is Washington and Oregon,has had about 40% of the damage and the region which has Montana and Idaho has had about 55% of the damage and the whole rest of the country has had little bits and pieces. California has had some, although a good share of these people come out of California. Berkeley and the San Francisco area both have high populations of Earth First people living there. And we’ve (Washington) got several hundred now positively identified as being members of Earth First!”

Timber-sale opponents threaten Smokey Bear???

A letter arrived at the Wenatchee National Forest headquarters this morning threatening the life of Smokey Bear if the Forest Service doesn’t halt its plans to sell timber in an area of the Naches Ranger District.

The letter reads. “We pulled all da survey stakes and tags from da Bakeoven Timber Sale & we got Smokey! Stop dis sale and leave da woods alone or da bear gits it! — Da Bakeoven dozen”

A copy of the letter and tags from the sale area were mailed to The Wenatchee World. A Polaroid picture that showed two arms bolding a hammer and spike to a Smokey Bear doll was enclosed.

Forest officials would not comment on who “the Bakeoven Dozen” might be. but the letter was addressed to “Freddies,” which is the term used for Forest Service officials by the radical environmental group Earth First!

Wenatchee Forest spokesman Paul Hart said the Bakeoven sale is scheduled to be sold Wednesday. The timber is located in the South Fork Tieton drainage, about 45 miles west of Yakima.

Sale plans were revised after three spotted owls were seen in the area and Audubon Society members expressed concerns about their habitat. Hart said the society bad indicated it still was uncomfortable with the sale.

Forest Supervisor Sonny O’Neill was at Naches meeting with Audubon members today.

The modification dropped the number of board feet from 13 million to 11.3 million and retained owl habitat. Hart said.

Forest officials have confirmed vandalism to survey stakes and tags, be said. Forest Service law enforcement agents are investigating.

“Quite often when they are doing this demonstration, they’re diverting attention and pulling all the police to this, so they can go out and sabotage.” “I don’t care if it’s for no valid license on their vehicle, they’re going to’ jail. I may turn an illegal alien Mexican kid loose for that but Earth First is going to jail.”

“Earth First is a junior IRA as far as I’m concerned. They are doing the same kinds of sabotage such as burning helicopters that belong to private individuals that are contracted to do a job.”

“The first 6 months of 1988 we had 22 spiking incidents. 20 of them involved head rigs in mills. Most of you guys have been in mills and have at least seen the head mills running. I’ve got two close friends that are sawyers on head rigs and it’s 4 pretty ugly sight when that head rig comes apart.

“The statistics said that we didn’t have any injuries. This kid that got his neck cut would sure as hell dispute that. But the Forest Service officially has no injuries due to spiking, because Earth First didn’t take credit for It. Well, Earth First Isn’t going to take credit for something that comes out that negative.”

newspaper pretty strongly against Earth First!‘s policy toward non-violence, and they say they claim to be terrorists. That is their claim, not mine.”

“... Without the political pressure (to get something done about EF!), you are going to be seeing hundreds of these people in the woods. It started out with three, 8 years ago, and the gatherings now just in the state of Washington may show as many as 650 people. Earth First! is not an outfit that’s dropping in size, it’s expanding!”

“...The press needs facts. Don’t tell the press anything that you can’t back up 100Z.”

Question from the audience: “We had 26 Earth First! people up on our job a short time ago. The press came with them when they came onto the job. KOMO-TV was with them, the P-I newspaper was with them when they came onto the job. Why do the press come with them if they are waiting for facts?”

Jim Weed answers: “They are watching facts happen. Earth First!, when they get ready for an event like the one in Okanogan, call all the local press... They want the press there. And the press wants to come because you can’t sell newspapers telling somebody that the logging community is doing a good job this year on keeping the woods clean of slash or whatever the loggers do good. You sell newspapers

Forest Service reports more arrests but fewer pot seizures

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents have seized roughly 30 percent fewer marijuana plants in Pacific Northwest national forests this year, but the number of arrests has almost tripled over 1987, a U.S. Forest Service official said Friday.

“It’s a combination of growers in the Northwest becoming more skilled in hiding their plants and having other priorities that have taken time and resources away from drug eradication,” Ed Few. an assistant branch chief for law enforment, said of the drop in plant seizures.

Few said one area taking more of the Forest Service’s time in the Northwest is Investigating so-called “tree spiking,” in which activists drive large spikes into trees slated for harvest in an effort to stop the logging or make a political statement.

“Had we not been having to deal with environmental activists and tree spiking we would have been able to do a better job in dope eradication,” Few said.

One reason for the increased arrests was strong cooperation from state and local law-enforcement agencies, Few said, adding it was among the best th.’ agency had received anywhere.

This year, about 12,600 marijuana plants have been found growing in the national forests of Oregon and Washington, compared with almost 17,000 a year earlier. Few said.

Forty-five people have been arrested for marijuana cultivation in the Northwest’s national forests in 1988, compared with 16 a year earlier, be said.

Few said the national forests of Washington and Oregon still rank among the most-used by marijuana growers.

“... They (the press) have mis-quoted me several times, and they have also quoted some of my 4-letter words in their newspaper which didn’t do me any good. But we can’t tell them anything we can’t prove. Don’t go out on a limb and lie to them or assume something because if they catch you doing that, you credibility goes to Hell and Earth First!‘s group gains credibility.”

oi the Okanogan line, up doing some logging a bullet hole in it. that, on the same log tai chopper crash and

They had a helicopter and it wound up with Two months prior to landing, we had a fa-when they started in-

sumer products as a replacement for a wild, natural life... I was going to do a whole essay on that in fact—but I have too much else to do to finish this paper so I won’t. Save the dolphins, blow-up a fish factory!)

—Mikal

“This Incident occurred about 45 miles south

vestlgation It, they think it was caused by mechanical failure. But they won’t say what kind of mechanical failure and I can’t seem to get into the FAA Investigation yet. But there was an Earth First! sticker on the bubble of the helicopter.”

“...There is a violent sub-group called ‘Stumps Suck!’. They came out in the Earth First!

Save the Dolphins

Each year tens of thousands of dolphins are killed by the tuna fishing industry when they are caught-up in the nets. For unknown reasons, dolphins and tuna often swim together.’ Fishing boats exploit this relationship by setting nets on pods of dolphins—which are

visible on the surface—and thus snagging many

of them. According to information we received, the “legal” quota is 20,500 dolphin deaths allowed per year. The actual number is likely much higher. 95% of all tuna fish are caught without killing dolphins (by using individual lines and other techniques), while 5% of the tuna (yellowfin) is caught at the expense of the dolphins. A boycott of all tuna products is being waged in an effort to pressure the companies to stop dolphin-killing practices.

The major villains are Ralston-Purina, Heinz and Carnation. This means boycotting Starkist, Chicken-of-the-Sea and Bumblebee and all tuna pet foods as well as other products put out by these companies. For more info write Earth Island Institute Dolphin Project, 300 Broadway, Suite 28, San Francisco, CA 94133. Or, for subversive stickers (.75c per sheet) to put on tuna cans in supermarket shelves, write to Save the Dolphins, POB 2283 Bellingham, WA 98227.

There is also a boycott of ivory being waged by Colorado EF! to save elephants. For more info write to 10876 Victoria Dr, Parker, CO 80134 or throw a brick through an ivoryselling jewelry store with a message about how nice elephants are...

(At this point I was going to write a critical little rant about boycotts. I was going to go on about how, by encouraging consumption of other brands or substitute products, they only reinforce consumer society. Or, I wanted to show that allowing industrial mass slaughtering of one species (tuna) but not another because that species is “higher” only reinforces the notion that nature is some heirarchical pyramid—with humans on top, of course. I wanted to say that what we should direct our energy towards is the deconstruction of this industrial/consumer social order which gives us only two bad choices of con-

TO BE IN LOVE WITH EVERYTHING THAT LIVES: THE ORGY THAT IS THE EARTH

by Feral Faun

When I am in the midst of a forest, on an ocean beach, on a mountain top, when I see a hawk, a deer, a rabbit, whenever I experience the wild earth, I feel an intense desire to make love with all that surrounds me, to immerse myself in what is clearly a marvelous, erotic orgy. At times, I do immerse myself. More often, sadly, the years of domestication I have been through rear their ugly heads and hold me back. But I have experienced the wild earth and know it lives and want to be part of its orgy.

Many radical environmentalists speak of the earth as a mother. I find this strange. My mother was the first authority I confronted in my life. She molded me to follow rules rather than my desires, to be exploited and to exploit rather than to share love and pleasure, to give up the beauty of the present for an imagined future, to sacrifice adventure for security. She tamed the wild, free creature I had been, domesticated me, created a repressed, inhibited, resentful and unhappy being. Herself domesticated and repressed, she could not birth me in joy and pleasure. She had been made too rigid, fearful and hard. Instead she birthed me in pain and resentment and tried to mold me in her image. My struggle against internalized authority has been largely a struggle, against what my mother did to me — including her implicit, refusal to be my lover. I have no desire for another mother.

I do not doubt that the earth is the source of my being. But it did not birth me in pain and sorrow to resent me as a mother, It birthed me in ecstatic pleasure to enjoy me as a lover. And the earth is not just a single being, a single lover. It is a myriad of wild, beings, an orgy of creatures enjoying, playing with, loving each other. The earth .does not seek to domesticate me for it is as a wild animal that I can best love and enjoy the. world. It does not repress me or make me conform to rules, for only free beings can freely share. The earth does not treat me as a mother would; rather, it woos me to join in the passionate embrace of the wild ones, tenderly calling me to be free.

But all around me the horrid shrieks of civilization try to drown the wild earth’s love song. Civilization would destroy the orgy. It is not productive; it does not work. And it moves us to lay down our tools and dance and feast and sing and make love instead. So civilization separates us from the wild earth and the wildness within ourselves and our mothers are one of the weapons in its arsenal.

I want to be free of the chains of civilization. I want to be a wild, free being, making love with all that lives. And as long as civilization exists it will strive to keep me from this and will threaten the ecstatic orgy that is the earth. So when I fight for the wild, earth against civilization, I am fighting for myself, for the freeing of my own wildness, for the realization of my own repressed desires. I would never fight to save a mother, but a mad orgy of ecstatic lovers is truly worth fighting for. The pleasure they would share with me inspires my own wildness to break free. The wild earth is not our mother; it is an orgy of ecstatic lovers of which we can by part when we throw off the chains of domestication and break free.

WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON??

ALAMOGORDO, NM, THE JAYCEES SPONSOR AN ANNUAL RATTLESNAKE ROUND-UP.

BERKELEY, A.G.S. IS SCREWING AROUND WITH GENETIC ENGINEERING.

BELLINGHAM, WA., TRILLIUM IS RUTHLESSLY RAPING THE SURROUNDING LAND IN ORDER TO BUILD SHOPPING MALLS AND RICH PEOPLES’ HOUSES.

SAN ERANCISCO, NIGHTBIRD IS SELLING EXOTIC ANIMALS TO FANCY RESTAURANTS FOR YUPPIES TO EAT.

DENVER, JONAS FURS IS ENCOURAGING WILD ANIMAL SLAUGHTER SO WEALTHY WOMEN HAVE FURS TO FLAUNT.

SCOTIA, PALCO IS BUSY SLAUGHTERING THE LAST OF THE GREAT REDWOODS.

VANCOUVER, ALASKA PACIFIC FOREST PRODUCTS

IS SHIPPING THE ALASKAN FOREST TO JAPAN.

PITTSBURG, OXFORD DEVELOPMENT IS BRAGGING ABOUT ORIGINATING THE IDEA OF SHOPPING MAULS.

B.C. WESTAR IS TRYING TO LOG SACRED GITKSAN-WET’SUWET’EN LAND.

If you think you iee a common denominaton hene, then thene’i a chance you may Mant to add to

10

NeedteAi to iay:

thiA tiAt (¡on Ratone ía^uca. .

Me coutdn’t begin to tiAt evenyone Mho deAenoeA to be a tanget. Moit of, ua one atneady aunne of the obviouA eoitA of Dom Chemccat on Shett Ott, but thiA cotumn Moutd be an oppontunity to a hone the penhapi ¿matten, mone to eat, teA¿en-knoMn vittainA Mith ¿orne of the othen

tn.oubteniak.eAA Mho might be leading thiA nag. SometijneA it hetpA to eoneentnate oua effontA, que no? .

So pick out youn pet tanget and ¿end thein to -cation and a ¿hont deAcniption of thein evitA to: ECO-FUCKER HIT LIST,

POB 411233 San Francisco, CA 94141

A TRUE SW

TRILLIUM OFF •ÜHI0BE7 ISLAND;

[as you sow, so I SHALL you REAP

STUMPS

Sl/CK!

WHEN THEY LEAST EXPECTED IT...

by T.S. Background: An evil corporation (aren’t they all?) is in the process of clearcutting 3000 acres on Whidbey Island and local residents are riled. This same conpany is (ir)-responsible for much of the development and destruction in the region: condos, a megamall (see puke-in article), tract housing. Days before, 50 people had blockaded a log truck but disbanded when police arrived.

Today there will be a hearing before the state on the propriety of the logging operation. Local activists are alerted and asked to organize a demonstration at the company headquarters one hour later to coincide with the hearing on the Island. Unable to muster enough support on such scant notice, the Corporate Raider decides on an alternative course of action...

SO HE GETS READY...

A communique is hastily stenciled. After a run to the nearby copy shop he returns with a fingerprintless copy which is then stuffed into a large bag of sawdust—saved for just such an occasion as this.

GETS SET...

The disguise: bandana, gloves (of course), glasses, hat and easily removable sweatshirt and pants.

AND GOES...

...Up the stairs, peeks through the door (looks good!) and steps into the plush office... As if Satan himself had appeared, a look of sheer mortification sweeps the secretary’s face: “OH NO!” The sawdust is hurled around the office, sinking deeply into the carpet... “HEY YOU! HEY YOU!” In a flash he’s bounding down the stairs, the enemy in hot pursuit... Out the door, around the corner, removing glasses, bandana, hat and gloves on the run. Quick!—he ducks behind a dumpster and off comes sweatshirt and pants. Stuff everything into a small pack and VOILA! instant college student innocently strolling through downtown. He ambles casually home, leaving his frantic pursuers bewildered and clueless (but aren’t they always?) It was just another day at work in the world of hign finance.

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.in by Sara Shatter

Recent reports have shown that an unusual phenomenon is sweeping the country. Hundreds of corporations, urbanly located, liave been the victims of a veritable plague of broken windows. What’s causing this? Earthquakes? Sonic booms? Mindless vandalism?

Actually, it’s none of these. The shattering of glass, currently being heard from coast to coast at an ever-increasing volume is the result of wrist rockets. You know, pocket rockets, sling shots! You shot lizards with them when you were a kid. Remember?

Well it seems that folks from all over are discovering the ease and joy with which they can cost evil developers, despoilers, and exploiters hundreds of dollars in one shot, so to speak, I mean, face it: plate glass windows are downright SPENDY. And glass doors don’t come cheap either. See?

So if you’ve read this far and suddenly found yourself with a twinkle in your anarchist eye, or a chuckle in your terrorist tummy, then read on for some simple how-to’s:

You can pick up a wrist-rocket (which is actually a brand name) at most sporting goods stores, or the likes of K-Mart. IF you pay for it, it will run about $6–8$. Well worth the cost or the risk. Machine nuts work well as ammo, and come free at your local junk yard. Nice, because notes can be crammed into the center. Glass marbles reportedly work even better and are sold at toy stores or flowershops.

Steel ball bearings are and be sure to wipe all off whatever you use.

Now, if you have a

The Corporate Raider episode is an example of someone taking action simply because action needed to be taken. This person didn’t wait for support from the other folks in his “local group”, he didn’t organize an affinity group or a support group and maybe he didn’t even wait around to wonder if he had the nerve to do it. He just did it.

What keeps more of us from acting on our impulses like this? Is it that we’re afraid of getting caught? Are we afraid that our approach might be wrong or we might insult someone? Or is it that we just don’t have time? Those of us who are pissed-off enough to want things to change, should probably take some time to evaluate just how tight of a grip this “civilization” has on us. If you are convinced that the system is powerful enough to punish everyone who opposes it, or if you still have remnants of the belief that the “meek shall inherit the earth” or some other such bullshit, think about it again. Stopping the eco-raping corporate scum from pillaging the planet is really much easier, less risky and more fun than they would like us to think. As the saying goes, “The world isn’t dying, it’s being killed. And it’s being killed by people with names and addresses!” Don’t delay! Do it today!

the best. Wear gloves those nasty fingerprints

partner and some trans-

portation, you’re all set to enter into the exciting world of drive-by window smashing. Keep a straight face and an eye out for cops, load ‘er up, pull back haaaard, aim careful, (keep your arm inside the car) and fire. SMASH!

Smiles of satisfaction. Good clean fun...But wait! Get that bank! Oh, too late? Next

time have ammo #2 ready because more windows are more fun! Mostly you’ll make small holes or cracks but an occasional window will shatter violently—sweet symphony, but have your escape in mind.

If you don’t have a car, don’t worry. Just be sneaky and wear your running shoes. Make sure no one’s looking.

Oh, and if you’re shooting from a car, make sure the window is open, okay? You wouldn’t think I’d need to mention that, but, well, that’s another story...

Remember to engage at all times in thought-^ ful, not mindless vandalism. We have our reputation to think of, after all. Avoid smash- | ing Sierra Club’s window. They probably only ¹ have one. Get the nasty asses that cut down rainforest, the scumbags that sell exotic furs, timber industry creeps and developers. Get a few banks every night, too.

Once you try this, you’ll see how much fun it Is. An easy night out on the town, and so satisfying. Forget dinner and the movies, ask your next date to go window smashing!

mass of grass into a diet of industrially refined sugar, white flour, lard, beans, beef, and canned tomatoes and peaches purchased with the profits from cattle ranching.

If the price of beef went down, they reacted by expanding the herds and increasing the grazing pressure. They attacked the most vulnerable point of the ecosystem: the grass cover over the soil. As the grass went, the topsoil followed. Next came the arroyo cutting and the meandering rivers began to flood, tearing out the meadows, tremendously widening the river in a re-enactment

WITH ENOUGH TOOTH

.GOnTHW£D

able. Oil is absolutely necessary to maintain industrial society. But, do we want to maintain it? Even Time Magazine these days doesn’t question the notion that the Earth is on the brink. And we only have to look a tiny bit deeper to reach the conclusion that the destructiveness is an inherent and unavoidable consequences of a system that it-

self is not clean-up-able.

re-invent the way we live

Graphic Alice Codrescu

of the

So, we want to on the planet? But the matter? Is the untary? Do we have drive cars or not? factories producing

do we have a choice in modern social order vola choice in whether we Do we choose to work in petrochemical products

or cars? Or are these things foisted on us by a totalitarian society that gives us no choice but to do these things in order to survive? I’m getting rid of my car. The system has mechanisms for dealing with people like me, however. My lifestyle can be accomodated by the Machine. For the most people, though, this is not possible. They have to eat. And the Machine needs them to keep it running.

The only real possibility for escape is the total “de-construction” (for lack of a

better term) of the system, a from its constraints in order on our terms instead of those Power. If we had a choice, a tive—or at least the freedom

breaking-free to create life of Economy and real alternato create new

Finally, the modern regime of the colonial-industrial economy took hold- Now. the process of desert ification on the Watershed is so advanced that when the San Francisco River floods, the Federal government will no longer provide disaster aid because what seems like a disaster has occurred so frequently in re cent years it has become a normality.

Now. the people of the Watershed are fed by the in dustrial metabolism. The diet is shipped in from the metropolitan centers of industry. The diet is bled from the life of the land. Topsoil, the reservoir of fertility of the land, maintains itself in a dynamic cycle by feeding upon the organic matter that falls up on it. This continuous cycle is the gauge of the healtl of the planet. The present logging system bleeds the Earth of what is topsoil in potential. The “raw resources” (biomass! are traded with the industries in the center of colonial (rower lor industrial product-, and for the food that makes up the present diet.

Many cycles and ecological systems on the Water shed arc now reeling-the hydrological cycles, the tin-cycles, the weather cycles, the vegetational cycles, e H the animal abundance and ihter-mix cycles to ment.on ³ ’eW r- ,

Ham and eggs for breakfast and the European fan, system have ecologically destroyed Europe. The wan national food company propagandists have caused the Japanese (and other societies) to choose the wild bread of emirire. thus empowering U.S. agribusiness and the trans-rrationals-and cashiering the small Jai anese rice farmer. Throughout the world-wide Indus trial empire, the mutant relationship with the Earth expands as the planet dies

Will a cultural and spiritual balance and personal empowerment flow from dietary choices for us? Th will if we stop empowering the white sugar flour crowd by our choices An average Chokonen could run fifty mles a day and up toward a hundred if neer be. they didn’t eat white bread and baloney’

Get together. Speak for the plants and animals that Iced you and for all the other living beings In form others about the Earth diet on your watersh •■■ its nutritional superiority and its ecological fragility Learn the food plants on your watershed and in your bioregion. Create culture hy telling your trim ¹ about them. Observe the principles by which they thrive. Gather their seed Help them spread. Hei, crease the fertility.

—William Koethke

possibilities—would anyone go back to the factories and their horrendous slave jobs that are necessary to keep the whole thing running? Somehow I don’t think so. We can begin this transformation as individuals, but to make a difference, it must spread. We need to quit looking for new brands of glue for this rotting society and start imagining what Earthly life could be, can be, must be, if we are to avoid both death by catastrophe and the slow annihilation of an increasingly un-free and anti-nature slave society. We can make our dreams reality only if we trust in the reality of our dreams. Tell your friends, neighbors, anyone, of your dreams and desires for a different world. When we dream alone, it is just a dream.

When we dream together it is reality. There are no limits, only possibilities...

WHAT HAVE WE LOST?

Thci oAtceJLe .ci n.e.p’ci.ntzd he^e (¡‘tom the. Ec^th Eitate

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WHO STARTED THE YELLOWSTONE FIRES?

According to the Washington Post, four loggers have been hit with federal charges for dropping lighted cigarettes in the Targhee National Forest about 300 yards from the Park boun-dry. This incident, last July22, led to the largest of the fires that swept Yellowstone last summer. Eventually this fire alone burnt 385,000 acres within the Park. Geez, you’d think that they’d be satisfied with cutting the forest down and could leave the Park alone. Guess not, huh?

BRUSHES

Documented Impact of the 1984 Whidbey Island Oil Spill on Water Birds. A Report to WA Dept, of Game by Steven M. Speich 2/4/85

For those who wish to direct much needed bricks, hatemail or whatever at Sause Bros., here is their address: Sause Bros. Ocean Towing, 155 E Market, Coos Bay, OR

Note: This was originally intended as a longer, more detailed article. I had also planned to include an evaluation of what has happened to environmentalism these days and a bunch of other stuff. Instead, I rushed through it in order to include it in Live Wild-. The environmentalism critique will be a separate project and will appear in the next issue.

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Magnificent shopping malls engulred by open fields.

Parking Iocs sacrificed to wildlire habitat.

Progress and Technology butchered on the altar of nature and wilderness.

Skyscrapers razed to build cantuna., lodges.

Mighty dams subdued and tamed by free-flowing rivers.

Mass production and assembly lines subsumed by skilled crafting.

Supermarkets and chemical agrtcu.-ture devastated by abundant rood, free and shared by all.

Organized violence of global warfare overpowered by ritualized conflict games.

Computer information networks subverted by campfire storytelling.

Stock Exchanges and profit ‘undermined by gift-giving.

Forests encroaching on the deserts.

Religion devoured by spontaneous festivals and living myth.

Docile and obedient wage-laborers left to follow their own desires.

The city lights are dark, the stars blaze.

The clocks have all been smashed.

There is dancing in the land.

Music in the air.

The dreamers are awake.

There will be no going back.

... but who wants to?

( They say it all began sanetime very soon...)

AN ADVERTISEMENT

lé you. wese once, a tittle kid

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you

And

Hot-wired bulldozer runs amuck

BY CRAJG MdNNES

The Globe and Mail

JOHNNY’S GIANT JACKS (in the key o( “8 tint]

by Aimed i Gittin’ Even

playing jacks a what you did buy Johnny’a Giant Jacks buy Johnny’s Giant Jacks buy Johnny’s Giant, Johnny’s Giant Johnny’s Giant Jacks

take them to a togging load (oiget to take them when you go

buy Johnny’s Giant Jacks...(etc]

No mattes, how you diop them down They always point up (10m the giound buy Johnny’s Giant Jacks...(etc]

Eighteen come inside a boi

One (,oi each wheel o( a serni-tmck buy Johnny’s Giant Jacks...(etc]

Rocks and gravel were put in the | radiator and crankcase of a bulldozer belonging to the Hern Shingle company on the Kincade timber sale on the Cascade River. The buUdozer’s operating levers also were bent.

About >40,000 damage was done to logging equipment of the Summit Timber Co. on the Dandy Ridge timber sale in the Baker River vaUey and equipment belonging to a third logging operator was vandalized on the Andersacker timber sale on the North Fork of the Nooksack River, Quii-. liam said.

I A group modelling itself on a ■ radical environmental movement I in the United States has driven I steel spikes Into trees in a conser-Ivatlon area north of Toronto in an I attempt to stop a logging operation. group called Earlh Pbst. Ontario, has driven spikes 10 to I5 centimetres long Into trees in the Thornton Bales Conservation Area in King TOwnshlp, hoping to make it too dangerous to cut them down.

In a letter sent to The Globe and Mail, the group says It spiked 300 trees in the conservation area last tear. Spiking poses a danger to iggers, whose chain saws could hit one of them.

In a move opposed by naturalist

contractor to cut trees this fall and winter to improve the health of the forest. ’

A spokesman for the authority confirmed yesterday that spikes

Meanwhile, the Curry^^HBII iffs department said someone hiked into the South Indigo logging sale area between Aug. Il and Aug. 17 and vandalized logging equipment owned by Sherman Contracting Co. The company was logging the sale for Gold Beach Plywood.

Co-owner Frank Sherman said vandals packed dirt into engine oil filters and transmission fluid filters, causing S35.000 in damage to a yarder, a -log loader, a skidder and a bulldozer.

He said down time and lost wages amounted to an additional $25,000 in damages.^,. . __

Vandals last weekend removal oil filters and sparkplugs ana drained oil from a piece of heavy equipment at the west end oi River Road. Damage was estimated at 14,000.

a, IM »MW .1.» ■”» n.«

SAN FHANCISCO — A group ot juveniles hot-wired a bulldozer to get it going, and the machine smashed three houses and two cars near Candlestick Park, police said yesterday

Police Officer Matt Krimsky said three or four youths found the bulldozer al a construction site at Meade Avenue and Jennings Street about * 30 pm, but jumped off after starting it because they didn’t know how to drive it.

Krimsky said the bulldozer rolled down a grade from Meade Avenue across Le Conte Avenue and into the 900 block of Key Avenue where it plowed into and demolished a house.

Still running by itself, it destroyed a cyclone fence, a power pole, waler and gas lines and a parked automobile It then hit a second car and pushed it into two bouses.

Police estimate the damage at about »250.000 No suspects have been apprehended.

Harkness, who operates his own «S^rL ¹⁰gglⁿ« company, said he thinks he will have difficulty selling logs from the spiked area. He anticipates his costs will rise substantially, because of the Ume it will take to inspect each log ^f ^ U ¹³ ^PPed to area mills The Forest Service will loan Harkness a metal detector, Quilliam

Harkness said he paid more than »50,000 for the trees on the 51-acre I h^JiHe ^ “^ ““^ ⁿot waⁿt to buy logs from this sale, fearing un- I metal ^ CouW damage j milling equipment and injure mill- j workers.. „ ., I

have been driven into some Irees, bill said Iha plan to cull up to a ■ third of the forest in parts of the 20- I hectare preserve is going ahead

The loggers are well aware that ■ they’re In there. We’ve pulled most M them out,” said Peter Seibert director of community relations fc —

the conservation authority.

The logging is necessary ’ the forest has become ur unhealthy, he said. I I

The Federation of .

rahsts opposes the^KW^

spokesman said v^S^&W9 Wv^Mi group neither ’^t-»W WT^’^a any involve™. ^■¿7’ WW^^F^d ■ ■* t he t rees. JKBL ▲ W^^^ 1

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servation ^Ktt£^E0VF ■ ■

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Vandals hit logging sit?

Vandab destroyed logging equipment valued at 1187.000 at a I^ke Samish logging site Monday.

Whatcom County Undersheriff Doug GID said the equipment belongs to Janicki Logging of Sedro-Woolley.

A loader, a yarder, a compressor, a bulldozer and an air drill all were damaged extensively by vandalism including dirt or sand mixed with salt dumped in the hydraulic, fuel and cooling systems, wires cut. gauges smashed and tires slashed.

Tools valued at J350 also were stolen.

The incident was reported at 7.20 a.m. today.

An operator of heavy equipment not only enjoys prestige and good pay. but many of our graduates have traveled to many locations throughout the country enjoying not only a change ot scenery but tne satisfaction of being able to go where the jobs are

This is the Age of Earth Moving Miracles...And You Can be Part of it!

In your face EFN!

by Seldom Employed

The Arizona Strip is that wild land north of the Grand Canyon and south of the great Utah plateaus. Until recently home to mostly jackrabbits, coyotes and hawks (and too many cows), it’s been happily ignored by industrial civilization (excepting the imperial beef concession). A great place to carry wire cutters to.

The Strip is now undergiong a devastating assault by multinational uranium mining corporations, notably EFN (Energy Fuels Nuclear) and Pathfii.Jers, a subsidiary of the French government’s nuclear arm, COGEMA.

Unusual geologic formations known as breccia pipes have been found in the last 1015 years to abound on both sides of the Canyon, particularly in the Strip. In these collapsed cylinders uranium ore is concentrated to 4and 5 times that found in an average field, such as the Grants Uranium Belt of New Mexico. Thus, even in a down market, an explosion of claims—some 50,000—occurred here, under the stewardship of the BLM, which oversees the vast majority of this area. Permits to mine are granted rubber-stamp Eas (Environmental Assessments) and no amount .-f pressure from environmentalists seems likely to force the feds to conduct a full area-wide EIS (Environmental Impact Statement—bigger than an EA) to assess the cumulative impacts of dozens of mines, a lattice-work of heavy duty haul roads, enormous transport loads of radioactive ore, and even a proposed uranium mill. The BLM is also very proud of its flagship wilderness designations on the Strip, which won significant protection for several hundred thousand acres while assuring a timely release of far more land to the flood of mining claims.

Bear in mind that the greenhouse effect scare is pushing some “friends” of ours to call for more reliance on nuclear power.

We’d seen the damage firsthand at Pigeon, Kanab North, Hack Canyon, Pinenut and Hermit, mines located within easy flood reach of Kanab Creek, the major north side

DIRECT ACTION

As cadres of “popular professionalism” we reply to your question on how to saw down the pylons of the atom mafia.

The best way is the following:

You need 6 hacksaws. Advantage, easier to carry, make less noise, far less expensive. Disadvantages, sawing takes a long time.

Moreover you need:

6 100 ml bottles of oil, 15 spare reenforced blades, 2 pocket torches with side light screened, something to mark parts to be sawn, a handkerchief (on which to change the blades), a tree trunk about 2’i metres long by 15 cm in dia-metre, heavy winter socks to wear over shoes, gloves.

The best recipe is:

I) Mark all the parts to be sawn, saw all the inferior transversal bars joining the four pillars (at the same level as central

pillars are to be cut).

2) Saw a wedge in the tw o pillars in the direction of the fall (the pillars chosen must be parallel to the electricitv

tributary of the Grand Canyon. Seen the trucks, rolling huge dust clouds across the plateau. Heard the screams of big machines from across the quiet chasms at night.

Then, one day, we noticed... the lines. The miles and miles of high-voltage wire hung atop mere sticks of wood. Well, wouldn’t it be nice, we thought, if killer termites were sent by Mother Gaia? Nice, but what do you think we’re doing here—contributing to the ascent of man or something? Or (hiking along wideeyed) if something were to happen right here, at the edge of this 1000-foot cliff, where the cables plinge down all the way to the bottom in one unsupported swoop? Wonder what it’d cost them to restring that? As they say, a dream was born.

The fulfillment came over a year later as we stood on the brink of Hack Canyon, bow saw in hand; industrious, tired and inspired. At sunset a :ull moon bore witness from the clear September sky. To be wild or not to be— there was no longer any question. The question was how to drop this extremely powerful bit of technology into Hack’s without leaving some crispy evidence behind. Like our be-hinds.

An elementry appreciation of stress and tension is required at certain times. In fact, the stress of our forced march (from a para-noically distant drop point) and the tension of dealing with an ungodly number of volt-amperes did produce intense concentration. Just be careful you little wild ones!

The last of the guy wires broke with a spine-tingling twang before by hacksaw had cut even three of its ten strands. Although I was in high gear, facing away, the eerie violet strobe effects and unforgettable snap, crackle and pop were impressive. I had a spot nightmare of falling into God’s Own Bowl of Rice Crisp-ies.

The adrenaline rush was considerable. The hike out lasted way longer than the rush. But one does what one thinks is right, good and necessary, no?

The clean getaway reduced our anxieties, a setup for the (we hope) final jolt. In a small town somewhere in the West, there being nothing else available for my news jones, I broke down and bought a USA Today, for the first (and I swear, last!) time ever. Eventually it came to pass that a small item, under “Arizona”, from news around the nation, September 28, 1988, met my trivia-stupifled gaze. We were bad—we were nationwide!

cables). For the wedge, first saw diagonally towards the direction of the fall (about 30 degrees) towards the bottom From a 90 degree angle continue to saw

along the line of escape. Two or three people stay by the pylon. With the help of the tree trunk push the wedges out of the pillars. Nothing happens after the first wedge, “hen the second wedge falls it is

time to leave in the opposite direction to that of the fall (taking small steps, one foot always in contact with the earth). The pylon falls in the direction in which the pillars have been sawn.

4) The time of the fall is a minimum of two seconds. The cables are pulled to the ground by the pylons. Stay bent and very stable, “hen the cable makes contact with the ground a short circuit is formed. “e consider the only dangerous phase to be that of sawing the pillars

Revolutionary Operators

horizontally. Complete the cut. then saw the two pillars horizontally about 15 cm above the oblique cut. Use the saw in two each using both hands (it should onh he drawn, it’s less tiring and makes less noise).

3) “hen the pillars have been sawn, put al! the tools that have been used to-

gether and go to about 150 sards away

If all goes as planned, Radio EcoCage may soon be subverting the elec-tranagnetic spectrum near you. Pirate radio--unauthorized radio broadcasting frem hidden transmitters—has long been used by radicals and others to circumvent the state and/or corporate chokehold on cannunications. During the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, for example, the clandestine radio network conveyed information on events, broadcast declarations of resistance, opposed collaboration and fulfilled other functions for a full two weeks before eventually being crushed. Other, less preminent examples abound. Nearly every major resistance effort has used pirate radio to one degree or another.

The procedure is relatively simple and requires only a moderate level of electronic sophistication and equipment. Much of the necessary equipment has already been acquired and the rest should run less than a couple hundred dollars (unless someone in the electronics business can get a “deal”). The set-up now being looked at will allow broadcasting on the Eli band with a range of around four miles. To avoid FCC efforts at pinpointing—pirating is highly illegal— transmissions will take place from a constantly moving vehicle. The equipment can easily be hidden in the back of even a small car.

The four mile range will usually suffice for broadcasts in urban areas or near action sites. Anything may be transmitted: direct action reports, radical viewpoints, incitements to action, Forest Service jokes...anything! Only imagination will limit: this is a true “free press”!

As activists in the U.S., we new live in a political daydream. Ohly the thinnest of carefully constructed illusions hides the nightmare which unz derlies it all. With the accellerating dismemberment of the social fabric and the increased resistance this engenders, we can expect a corresponding increase in repression. A look at world headlines should dispell any doubts. Our ability to ccnnunicate will become critical and will depend primarily on independent, creative, decentralized media such as pirate radio. Anyone with interest in this project, technical expertise, access to cheap/free electronic equipment or pirate experience may direct correspondence through this paper.

ARIZONA

prevent

PHOENIX — Ex-Gov. Evan DELAl Mecham hasn’t paid American

Comnet of Washington, D.C., WO $117,000 for work on recall elec- moretl

— Probe began into Sunday destruction of 25 telephone poles leading to planned mine south of Grand Canyon. Environmentalists, Havasupai Indians oppose mine, claiming tailings could pollute creek through reservation. Damage to poles near Fredonia shut down 3 mines.

Arkansas

MONTICELLO — Drew County will build its own 30-bed, $1.2 mil-

women lieved 1

ice Su here a :orne lolland u perin rate’s j laced :epted

D.C.

Priv< sponso prograr hire me

ACTIVIST CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY

On September 1, 1987 peace activist Brian Willson was run over and seriously injured after he and others blockaded a weapons train leaving the Concord Naval Weapons Station in Concord, California. A few days later over 7,000 people showed-up outside the weapons station to protest the maiming of Willson and continuing U.S. intervention in Central America. Toward the end of the rally, nearly 1,000 people, using their bare hands and simple tools, peacefully and joyously tore up 120 feet of railroad track and ties.

Six months later, on March 1^st, 1988 Billy Nessen, long time Bay Area activist, was arrested on the University of California

campus in Berkeley. He was charged with felonious vandalism and conspiracy to commit a felony for supposedly instigating and single-

They pulled your name off of the list, sort of randomly, although you did have a file already, (but, who doesn’t?)

Then they tapped your phone and gave me the job of listening to you.

At first I was bored, you didn’t say much that mattered to us.

But sometimes you made me mad.

You called us names; pig-scum-filth-rapists-terrorists-murderers, I thought you were terribly uninformed. And sometimes I felt sorry for you, trying so hard, floundering in confusion, you were never organized.

I often doubted whether you were worth wasting time on.

But as time went on, I found myself interested in you — well, in what you said, anyway.

You slowly became part of my life.

You stirred something in me that I thought had been dead for a very long time.

Agents of Repression

a review by Toni Otter

Reprinted fran Anarchy, a journal of desrire armed. (POB 1446, Columbia, MO 65205–1446)

Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall (South End Pre«: Boeton. 1988) 509pp., J1S00 paper.

Anarchists today would be foolish to forget, as authors Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall recall, that the FBI (then Bol) was instrumental in crushing the IWW, deporting Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, murdering Andrea Salsedo, Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and ‘neutralizing’ thousands of others. Since roughly 1915, the primary function of the FBI has been to destroy or discredit anyone considered an enemy or even a serious critic of the U.S. government. As anarchy grows, we can expect the FBI to ruin or kill as many of us as possible. As we choose wilderness, pleasure and cooperation, the FBI will fight back. People ‘will be targeted as subversives and traitors. False information concerning their personal and professional lives will be leaked. Jobs will be lost, careers shattered, families destroyed. Homes and offices will be broken into, files rifled and stolen, rooms bugged and phones tapped. Midnight raids will be

conducted on spurious warrants. Passports will be revoked. IRS audits will be ordered... Offices and domiciles will be firebombed. People will be accused, arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison for crimes they never committed (and which may never have occurred at all). Others will be attacked and beaten, stabbed and otherwise maimed by ‘patriotic’ thugs on city streets, in alleyways and along lonely back country roads. Still others will be murdered ’by person or persons unknown.” (Agents of Repression, pp. 387–8)

But this is, the authors note, “no more than normal operating procedures of the FBI where ’politically objectionable’ targets are concerned. The only real question is whether such atrocities will occur as part of a process which ultimately forces the Bureau to stop, or whether they are allowed to occur unhindered....’(p. 388)

Churchill and Vander Wall have written a readable, well-researched book. They remind us that Leonard Peltier and Geronimo Pratt, to name only two, are still in prison, that Cointelpro (systematic FBI campaigns against selected organizations and individuals) never really ended, and that the FBI is better funded than ever, with Puerto Ricans and those opposed to intervention in Central America, among

Indians destroying railroad tracks near Bussell, Kansas, 186V. hiiii’uig by I. Goldin. ¡Kansas state iustoiucal society, topeka)

handedly masterminding the track removal, (some people get all the credit!) If convicted, he could be jailed for up to four years.

The case against Billy is one piece of a larger coordinated move against ongoing demonstrations at Concord. The various police forces—local, state and military— have

You spoke often of your love for this grove or that, or mountain or meadow or river. Remember when you came home from climbing that peak? I’ve only done that in my dreams. But on that day, a little part of me had done it with you, and on that day, some of my boyhood returned.

And then was the time you planned on and on. for that river trip. Well, you tugged at my heart then too. I was actually sad when you left without me.

I began to understand when you dreamed with your friend about blowing that dam to the sky. For my heart had begun to long for the freedom and joys of your chaotic, confused, wild and untamed, activist’s life.

Me...

just a nine-to-five spy, I never have fun, go through traffic to work and fill out forms all day long, and can’t ever be late with the alimony.

I’m dying...

And you made me see that the natural wild world is dying too.

Like me.

Those long talks with your friends,

so full of passion and love,

I couldn t help but feel it too.

You were only trying to save Her, for Her wildness was in you too.

You made me see that, somehow.

others, receiving recent special repression

If you already know about the FBI, you ,, 7/ / . can probably learn more by reading this l(

book. If you think the FBI is your fnend, or f if your image of it is shaped by some of the Bureau’s propaganda, such as the 1960s T.V. series “The FBI.’ every script for which was approved by FBI headquarters, then maybe this book will restore your vision. Whether you choose this book or other sources, it is important to understand how the FBI works. As the authors warn, “The only true alternatives are to abandon ourselves to the totality of a police state, or to move forward in conscious. active opposition to it.’(p. 381)

A weakness of the book is the authors’ solution to stopping the FBI. To their credit, they are unequivocal in opposing the FBI and suggest that a coalition of groups/individuals do just that. But the FBI is merely a symptom of an institution which has usurped or been given power. Abolish the FBI tomorrow and one still has the government/military-industrial com-plex/authoritarian paradigm which generated it. Sadly, there seems little enough opposition to the FBI, but even massive struggle against the FBI is pointless unless we simultaneously dismantle the structures for which the Bureau is merely a guard dog.

Clam, genua Anodunta

consistently used violence and threats of violence to terrorize demonstrators. In addition, the District Attorney, the U.S. Navy and local politicians have sought various legal means to rid the area of anyone demonstrating. So far, all of this has failed to break the opposition to continuing weapons shipments from Concord.

So far, this case has received unanimous support from the Bay Area anti-war movement. At each of his pre-trial hearings, between 20 and 50 supporters have attended. In the next several months, his case will proceed to Superior Court and the actual trial should take place in late summer. He urgently needs moral and financial support. This is a case that all activists should watch closely since, if the state gets away with it, they may go after the rest of us next... Billy may be reached through his lawyer, Linda Fullerton, 145 Park Place, Pt. Richmond, CA 94807. Any checks should be made out to Concord Conspiracy Defense.

I felt also your pain when you’d begin to despair. You were always the underdog, and you know, you never really had a chance, so I hope you forgive me someday.

There s nowhere left for people like you not anymore.

So you’re doing 15–20 inside the State Pen, and sometimes I wish I could’ve stopped you from talking too much on the phone.

It was just once.

But it was enough.

I’m sorry, But I was just doing my job.

by chaco

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We. who can still ¡lear the jaguar scream. We dream of a day when all things wild will again be free. We long for a time when every species will be loved and honored equally. It is a dream we may never see fulfilled. But in answer to our own wild hearts. It is a dream we will fight for until the day we die.

Closing thoughts

So, this journal is almost done—well, the end is in sight at least. Hopefully, we 2 won’t drop it in a mud puddle or anything $ while we’re hitching with it across the state 3 to the printer. Anyway, we have a couple things to say in closing (always something to 2 say, no?). Consider this an open letter of sorts to everyone who’s interested in sub- £L mitting material to future issues, and especially to all you (crazy) people who are considering putting one of these things together sometime.

We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to set up what we hope can become a loose framework for this project and so we’d like to see these basic values maintained even as the paper itself evolves. This isn’t because we want to establish some kind of newspaper dogma, but we feel that these same principles are important to the health and effectiveness of the movement as a whole.

Anti-copyright for starters. Subversive ideas and artwork should be shared openly. This relates to being anti-property and antiprofit (read: anti-capitalist, anti-authority) . This paper has been paid for so far by the Direct Action Fund PCS 83, Canyon, CA

94516 , personal funds, and our wits (in other words, scams). Hopefully, the project will become self-supporting in the future— if not by donations, then maybe we could hold a bake sale or something...

Another very important goal is the balance of action and ideas, because after all (we’ve heard it a million times before) one doesn’t happen without the other. We can talk all day long about our ideas and theories, but if those thoughts never lead to practice, then it’s nothing more than intellectual masturbation (of the most boring kind). On the other hand, a movement just can’t happen if ideas aren’t constantly challenged and expanded. It’s curious that we should even make a distinction between two things that are, by nature, symbiotic.

In this journal we want to encourage the re-joining of actions and ideas, not only within the over-all paper, but within the articles themselves. If you’ve got an action to report on, back it up with your reasoning for it and evaluation of its effects (though this is by no means necessary, just encouraged). If you have ideas to share, then show how they can be realized as tools for change.

Anti-censorship is another important consideration of ours. We want to help

spread any ideas that may be beneficial to the movement—whether or not we may agree with them. Ideas should be means of advancement, not ideological fortresses built to hide behind. To this extent, free exchange is all-important. Be aware, though, that if we disagree with you, we won’t hesitate to respond and tell you why. We do hope this paper comes to reflect a diversity of views within the broad, if diffuse, anticivilization, anti-domestication, pro-wilderness movement (for lack of a better way to describe it).

We don’t really envision this becoming a regular sort of thing. Several times a year may be enough. It is really too much work (no other word for it) to do continually. We’d both rather go play in the woods than spend one more day at the typewriter. But who knows? Maybe enough of you will get inspired and make this a monthly rag. We may even help on it some more...

Whatever the future, we hope this has been a worthwhile effort already and hope that everyone finds something useful, inspiring, funny or at least provoking in this issue. If you or your favorite cause or activity has been poked fun at, well, have a sense of humor already! Thanks to all those who contributed or helped in whatever way! See you in the woods...

Petroglyph near Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Others Inside this issue are from the same region

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RETURN TO:

POB 411233 San Francisco, CA 94141

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factories don’t burn down by themselves...

they need help from you.

_{Learn to Burn.}