If the Redwood Summer coalition, including prominent Earth First!ers, didn’t care about the timber workers as Don Nelson, Mike Anderson, Thomas Loop, and their yellow shirted allies claimed so repetitively, one wouldn’t have been able to discern that from the statements they made in the build-up to the first major demonstration of Redwood Summer.
“L-P’s anti-labor record is legendary. In 1984 they fired 2,000 workers at once to bust (their unions); in 1989 they appealed the $1200 fine imposed by the state over the death of Fortunado Reyes in the Ukiah plant. We don’t know what value L-P puts on a human life, but apparently $1200 is too much. Now that L-P is moving to Mexico, we’re saying ‘adios’ to both jobs and the forests.”[1]
These statements, which described the plight of the timber worker quite passionately, were made by Darryl Cherney. “We’re not going to take the blame for disappearing jobs while L-P is opening up new mills in Mexico and closing them down in California,” declared Humboldt County Earth First!er Michelle “Mickey” Dulas. Redwood Summer organizer Ed Denson offered similar thoughts:
“I feel very sorry for any unemployed workers in the timber industry. They should be blaming the people who brought them to this situation: the timber industry of the Northcoast. Exports, automation, and over cutting have destroyed the timber economy of Humboldt and Mendocino counties.”[2]
Earth First!er Jennifer Beigel echoed these sentiments:
“What L-P is doing is immoral, if not illegal. It is a direct attack on those living in this community, taking away the livelihood of families and the life support of entire ecosystems. There is nothing to stop L-P from siphoning profits and jobs out of our area while destroying the last of the redwood forests, except the resistance of local communities.”[3]
Fellow Earth First!er Kelpie Wilson was no less direct:
“The export of rough cut logs to Mexico is taking away the right to work from local wood workers. We’re calling on timber workers and local residents to join us in protesting Louisiana Pacific’s destruction of both the ecology and the economy of the Northcoast. According to figures from the California Employment Development Department and the State Board of Equalization, Humboldt County timber employment has dropped over 35% in the last decade while timber production has risen by over 50%. This trend was clearly established long before Earth First! began doing actions on the Northcoast.”[4]
These statements as well as a brief history of L-P’s union busting, mill closures, the death of Fortunado Reyes, and Bari’s and Cherney’s efforts to reach out to L-P timber workers under the banner of IWW Local #1 were all included on the Redwood Summer coalition’s press release for the demonstration that would take place on June 20, 1990 at the gates of the L-P mill complex in Samoa at 11 AM.[5]
The featured speakers would include syndicated columnist for the Nation and Anderson Valley Advertiser, Alexander Cockburn; Earth Day 1990 organizer Dennis Hayes (despite the many differences Earth First! had with him); Randy Hayes (no relation) of the Rainforest Action Network; Darryl Cherney; Michelle Dulas; Bay Area IWW Secretary-Treasurer, Jess Grant; and Ida Honorof of People for Clean Air and Water. Anderson Valley Advertiser editor and publisher Bruce Anderson was to be the MC. Earth First! folk musicians Joanne Rand and Clan Dyken would provide music.[6] An IWW community picket line was to be established at 7:00 AM, and workers at the unionized L-P mill would be asked to honor the picket line.[7] Additionally, a flotilla of boats, organized by Greenpeace, would demonstrate from the nearby Humboldt Bay.[8] The Samoa location was an appropriate target, and it was intended specifically to target Louisiana-Pacific for a litany of offenses, though the location was conveniently close enough to the nearby Simpson pulp mill which was itself a legitimate contender, even though Redwood Summer mostly ignored Simpson. Not far beyond that lay the log export loading facility owned by congressman Doug Bosco’s father-in-law, Victor Guynup.[9] Although it might have seemed a distant memory given all that occurred since then, the joint rally organized by a coalition of business unions, environmental groups, Earth First!, and the IWW had only taken place in this very location just over five months hence. Since then, Bosco’s, L-P’s, and Simpson’s list offenses had grown even longer.
To begin with, new federal restrictions on dioxin in paper products and waste from chlorine bleached pulp and paper mills had been announced in late April.[10] That same day, both L-P and Simpson sued to overturn new California state limits on dioxin discharges into the ocean.[11] The federal announcement had quickly followed the release of a new scientific study suggesting that the wide ranging detrimental health impacts of dioxins and similar chlorinated compounds might be related to their tendency to mimic hormones and disrupt basic biological functions by interfering with DNA. The corporations defended their suit, arguing that that the new limits of .0039 parts per quadrillion in the mills’ effluent, which had been set the previous year in response to Clean Water Act requirements handed down by the EPA, were “arbitrary and capricious” and could “not be met”. L-P and Simpson had been using every legal delaying and stalling tactic available to them, including challenging the methodology of the testing. However, Ben Kor, executive officer for the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board argued that the limits were set using the best available data to protect the ocean environment. The Board was scheduled to consider a revision of both mills’ wastewater discharge permits under the new limits on June 23, 1990. Already L-P and Simpson were facing lawsuits by the Surfrider Foundation for violating the Clean Water Act with excessive toxic effluent discharges.[12] It was conditions such as these which resulted in Humboldt County producing more toxic water than any other county in California in 1988.[13]
McKinleyville resident Margaret Gipson was incensed that her water rates should be raised in order to subsidize Simpson and L-P, and she argued that both companies’ should instead be made to recompense the people for toxic air pollution and water effluents from their pulp mills and flakeboard plants, for aerial herbicide spraying, and for their other crimes against nature and the people.[14]
Humboldt County officials, including those responsible for air quality had been loath to enforce existing laws against both corporations, and had even undermined the efforts of regional and state officials to demand compliance, no doubt in fear of “job blackmail”. For example, James Morgester, chief of the compliances division of the California State Air Resources Board discovered that a recent particulate emissions test of the “hog” at Simpson’s Fairhaven pulp mill, administered by a private contractor, Ecoserve Environmental Services, showed the company to be within legal limits, which conflicted with data from his own agency, collected two months previously, that showed the hog particulate emissions exceeded legal limits by a factor of two. Morgester had learned of these results when the region’s local air quality district certified that Simpson’s Fairhaven facility was now within legal compliance, and was appalled at the ruling. Morgetser questioned Ecoserve’s methodology in a letter to that company’s executive vice president, Ray Kapahi, who responded, incredulously, that they had not been aware that their test was intended for internal use only and not to determine compliance. However, Wayne Morgan, chief pollution officer for the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, admitted to using Ecoserve’s data, conceded that it was less than ideal for such purposes, but justified his choice by all but speaking as a Simpson P.R. spokesman, saying that the company’s only other alternative would have been to spend $800,000 to upgrade their hog and that no other facility in the entire state had been required to spend that much money to conform with modern sampling techniques! Morgan’s protestations were scarcely different than actual Simpson spokesman Ryan Hamilton, who likewise bemoaned the scrutiny, arguing that Simpson was being singled out unfairly, and that installing the proper equipment would cost $100 Million and require three to five years to complete.[15] Evidently the cost to the residents of nearby greater Eureka and Arcata were not a consideration to the corporation.
Meanwhile, Louisiana-Pacific had been allowed to increase, without any scrutiny, the amount of NOx emissions, which are known to cause acid rain, from its nearby Arcata flakeboard plant in excess of 50%. The previous October, L-P had applied for an interim variance, and it had been granted in December. This process was part of an elaborate bait and switch by the company actually being sold as “an environmental improvement,” whose ultimate goal was to facilitate a 50% production increase that was culminating after five years. Although the proposed expansion included the addition of three new air pollution mitigation devices, it also included the construction of a third dryer (to accompany two existing devices) which the company argued would increase NOx emissions by only 39.4 tons annually, a “modest” 15 percent increase. However, independently conducted studies cast doubt on the company’s claims. For one thing, L-P based its numbers on the dubious promise that it would not increase production further and operate all three dryers below capacity, but no permit requirements to that effect had been issued. For another, L-P’s 50% expansion at that facility had either been ignored by the North Coast Regional Air Quality Management District, or the latter hadn’t been notified until state air sampling results the previous May indicated that the plant exceeded its particulate pollution limit by almost 75%. It was the first time the facility had been tested in eleven years. An independent expert revealed to environmental activists that L-P’s expansion would more likely lead to a 50% increase in NOx emissions, 125 tons annually in excess of the maximum allowed 225. The proposed expansion angered at least one trade union as well. Pipe Trades District Council 51 filed an appeal of the “authority to construct” granted to L-P for the new dryer, not only because it was to be built using nonunion labor, but because of the company’s flawed methodology in calculating the potential increased NOx emissions as well.[16]
Humboldt County voters had squandered a chance to clamp down on L-P’s and Simpson’s toxic emissions in the June Primary Election by voting down Measure A, which would have called for the County Health Department to notify all households and businesses where a toxic release occurred. The measure’s enforcement mechanism, if passed, would have been the strengthening of existing rules and the creation of new regulations, and it would have been initially financed by a one-time fee to all businesses in the county that handled toxic chemicals. Country Activist coeditor Robert Martel was part of the charge to pass this initiative, along with two other unrelated measures—Measure B, which limited campaign contributions, and Measure C, which closed loopholes in a measure passed in 1988 that banned the construction of onshore facilities that enabled the support of offshore oil drilling—through a grassroots coalition called North Coast Citizens whose meager funding was greatly outpaced by that of their opposition, Citizens and Business which was essentially a front group for big timber, who donated most of the $108,000 spent by the latter. L-P and Simpson donated more than $77,000 alone. Meanwhile North Coast Citizens could muster only a mere $7,000. Measure A was defeated by an almost 2 to 1 margin, with 24,258 votes against while only 12,382 in favor. Measures B and C were defeated by nearly identical margins. Citizens and Business engaged in smear campaigns, denouncing all three initiatives as the products of “radicals from Arcata” Martel decried the results as an example of “the power of money and the power of lies”, though he was at least reassured by the campaign’s raising public consciousness on the issues.[17] Still, the results showed that making change by working through “the system” was not generally productive.
As if this weren’t enough, L-P once again sprayed herbicides without informing workers or residents, this time in Fieldbrook, east of McKinleyville and northeast of Arcata. Barbara Carnam, a resident of that community was livid, declaring:
“It is hard to believe L-P’s assurances when the composition of the herbicide remains a trade secret of the chemical company.
“It is certainly hard to believe in L-P’s touted concern about local employment, when hand removal of brush or hand spraying are so much more labor intensive than aerial spraying.
“It should be common knowledge that the current overcutting, increasingly mechanized operations, and profit-based decisions (i.e. the Mexico plant move) will leave Humboldt County barren of healthy forests and healthy job base within the next 15 years.
“It should be no surprise to the timber companies that people are rising up to legislate or protest against these high-handed attitudes.”[18]
L-P was finding that expanding its production facilities to other countries also resulted in the expansion of labor disputes to other countries as well. Upon hearing of the corporation’s plan to use cheap, nonunion labor to unload logs at its new facility in El Sauzal, Baja California, a Mexican longshore union demanded restitution, and blockaded barges carrying timber after the first one had been unloaded. L-P halted any further construction of its El Sauzal facility and agreed to a temporary settlement—negotiated by the normally corporate friendly Mexican government—with the union, including an agreement to use the unionized workers. Company spokesman Shep Tucker admitted that L-P wanted to use fewer workers and pay only $2.25 US per hour, further proving that the corporation’s claim about the move being made to take advantage of dryer weather being a bald-faced lie.[19] Meanwhile, not content with their outsourcing jobs to Mexico, and exporting raw logs to Asia, L-P admitted that they were also looking to potentially import lumber clearcut from the forests of Siberia, now that the Soviet Union was rushing to embrace “free market” reforms.[20] Naturally Harry Merlo and L-P were salivating at the prospect of turning Russia and the other soon-to-be former Soviet Republics into banana republics. And all this time, Doug Bosco was joining in the industry led chorus blaming Earth First!ers and Spotted Owls for the workers’ misfortunes.
Meanwhile, Simpson’s Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers Local #67 union employees were still bitter about working without a contract, which they had been doing since June of the previous year. Simpson, like L-P and Maxxam, was famous for paying for full-paged ads in local publications, including especially the Times-Standard, and had recently issued one about how they were diligently their keeping the “250-plus highly trained” Simpson employees happy. One Simpson employee, Kevin Truby, responded by pointing out that the company had been doing “Zero, nada, nothing” in that regard. Truby reminded Times-Standard readers that the union had been trying, desperately, to negotiate a contract since then to no avail.[21] At one point, in response to the union picketing plant manager Aaron Gettelman’s house[22], the company had responded by attempting to isolate those responsible for the action by denouncing them as “terrorists” and accusing them of “sabotage” in a letter circulated among the employees. The company had also, on the one hand claimed that the pulp market was doing “great” in trade publications, but claimed to its own workers that the opposite was true.[23] All of these issues were raised, constantly and consistently by local environmental publications, especially Country Activist and EcoNews, and in virtually every press release issued by Redwood Summer coalition members, including the supposedly “anti-worker” Earth First!.
Although not originally conceived as such, the demonstration in Samoa comprised part of a much bigger chain of independently organized solidarity demonstrations that took place that day. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, the IWW, Earth First!, and the Rainforest Action Network jointly organized a demonstration, attended by almost 100 participants, in spite of pouring rain, in solidarity with Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney and Redwood Summer at the Federal Building located there. This was the first time these chapters of the three aforementioned organizations had worked together, and they each emphasized the need for more coalition work on worker and environmental concerns. In Chicago, Illinois, three dozen IWW members held a similarly themed, two-hour demonstration at their local Federal Building.[24] Meanwhile, in Riverside Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, demonstrators also gathered in support of Redwood Summer.[25]
The rally in Samoa began calmly at 7 AM, near the L-P plant gates by the side of a four-lane thoroughfare, State Highway 255 that ran past it, although at first the picket line consisted of Alexander Cockburn and a friend standing in for the IWW[26], until others—many of them from the San Francisco Bay Area IWW Branch—arrived a little later.[27] On the morning of the rally, the Eureka Times-Standard, ever eager to find fault with Redwood Summer, reported that details of the rally “were still sketchy”, even though they evidently knew where and when it was supposed to take place as evidenced by a picture of the IWW picket line at the plant gates.[28] The Wobblies and fellow travelers carried signs adorned with slogans like, “Forests and Jobs; Not Exports and Logs,” and “L-P Don’t Export Jobs.”[29] Sadly, the truckers did not honor the IWW picket line, but the picketers maintained it anyway for four hours until the rally began in earnest four hours later.[30] From time to time, on occasion, a trucker here and there would take one of the IWW leaflets and read it, and that same driver would, in turn be filmed by the off duty cops freelancing for L-P. [31] Well before 11 AM, the rally’s official start time, demonstrators began arriving in droves.[32] The demonstration had been hyped several days in advance by the mainstream media[33], which was fairly unprecedented at this time, as the corporate press usually only covered such events after the fact. The actual number of demonstrators is unknown, because estimates varied depending on the source. David Forster of the Eureka Times-Standard low-balled the crowd estimate at between 250 and 300.[34] The New York Times underestimated the crowd at 350.[35] Jane Kay of the San Francisco Examiner estimated 700 plus. The Anderson Valley Advertiser guessed between 7 and 800.[36] The Earth First! Journal counted 750 Redwood Summer demonstrators and supporters and at least 200 media representatives.[37] Mendocino County Earth First!er Sequoia Greenfield (who dressed in her giant Spotted Owl costume) placed the attendance at “1,000, not counting media people.” The media representatives included local media as well as press from around the country, including two satellite trucks.[38]
They were joined by a battalion of police officers from “about every law enforcement agency within Humboldt County,” some of them in riot gear, who had evidently anticipated a violent confrontation between the Redwood Summer coalition and counter demonstrators.[39] That L-P company spokesman Shep Tucker issued press packets to the assembled media that included the photo with Judi Bari holding an Uzi, not explaining the picture was meant as a joke (and certainly omitting the detail that it was later discovered to have been a deliberate attempt to discredit Earth First! from the get-go) suggests one source of such paranoia.[40] “With a group like this, you have to have all of your forces in place. We’ve got state and local police, the Coast Guard and some others ready for action”, said Tucker to the press, never specifying exactly who the “others” were.[41] All told, approximately 150 officers from ten county law enforcement agencies worked the rally at one point or another, according to Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Leona Mendenhall.[42]
For the first few hours, attendees were entertained by the aforementioned speakers representing Redwood Summer, who spoke from a stage, with amplified sound powered by solar electricity.[43] Darryl Cherney spoke from the stage and was interviewed by various media outlets, including NBC, showing that while the bombing may have shaken him and the movement, it broke neither his resolve nor his spirit.[44] Speaker after speaker spoke about the plight of the workers as well as the destruction of the old growth redwood forest ecosystem, clearly drawing the links between the two as well as other struggles worldwide. During his speech Cherney declared:
“Judi Bari did something that I believe is unparalleled in the history of the environmental movement. She is an Earth First! activist who took it upon herself to organize Georgia Pacific sawmill workers into the IWW…Well guess what friends, environmentalists and rank and file timber workers becoming allies is the most dangerous thing in the world to the timber industry!”[45]
Echoing that sentiment, Alexander Cockburn once again compared Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney to Amazon rainforest activist Chico Mendes:
“People call Earth First!ers ‘extremists’, and looking around here today, it’s obvious that you are. I’d like to talk about another ‘extremist’, Chico Mendes. Now Chico Mendes was a leader of the rubber tappers in the Amazon, who was murdered on December 22, 1988.
“Why was he killed? Because he and his fellow rubber tappers were trying to defend their rainforest, which was also their livelihood, from the land barons who have been burning the trees off and speculating with the land. These land barons are to the Amazon what Louisiana Pacific and Georgia Pacific are to the north country.
“When Chico Mendes and his fellows began to make serious headway against the land barons, they hired some goons and they killed him. Now we should be clear who this “extremist” Chico Mendes was. He was first and foremost a labor leader, who was looking to protect the livelihoods of his people. He was also an environmentalist. He and the other rubber tappers were prepared to put themselves on the line to save the forest. They developed ‘emphates’, or ‘stand-offs’ where they and their families would literally stand in the way of the logging crews and the gunmen and face them down.”[46]
Cockburn, ever the critical leftist, went on to summarize the damage done to countless American leftist movements and organizations by COINTELPRO, and then drew contrasts to the shabbily dismissive treatment of domestic radicals by liberal organizations as opposed to their exploitative use of radicals in other countries for their own, narrow self interest:
“So what happened when Mendes was murdered? The major environmental groups up here in the US rushed to denounce the killing. They sent out mailshots by the thousand with Chico Mendes’ face on the envelope, raising money in his name. Most of this money, by the way, didn’t get anywhere near the Amazon. Some of these mainstream groups, like Environmental Defense Fund really went to town on Mendes…
“Now there wasn’t that much of a difference between what Mendes was doing and what Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney have been doing. All of them were fighting to save trees and look to the long term interests of local workers. But when someone tried to kill Bari and Cherney, what did all the mainstream environmental organizations do then? How did they feel about Redwood Summer?
“Well, the Sierra Club had nothing to say about the attempted murders; and about Redwood Summer they said, when I and some colleagues at The Nation called to ask, that they would not be involved with Civil Disobedience. EDF and World Wildlife and National Wildlife all had nothing to say about the attempted killing and Redwood Summer. From all the mainstream organizations it was the same wretched story of cowardly refusal to comment.
“Some groups did come through. The (International) Indian Treaty Council, the River Council, Rainforest Action Network, and Greenpeace. So what does this tell us? That ‘extremists’ are honored, save in their own country, because ‘extremists’ challenge business-as-usual.”[47]
Bay Area IWW secretary-treasurer Jess Grant gave an impassioned speech elaborating how the IWW’s vision of workers’ self management and industrial unionism represented a far superior alternative to the status quo, which included the following excerpts:
“I’d like to talk about the ecological and the social costs of the current practices of the timber industry: The companies have tried to pit one against the other; they’ve tried to pit the workers against the environmentalists. It’s the classic divide-and-conquer tactic. But it’s not going to work, because I think we’re all starting to realize that the interests of both the workers and the forest ecosystems are best served by sustainable-yield logging and a worker-community buyout of the timber companies.[48]
"Now I don’t advocate—I’m not saying that this buyout ought to be at market rate. Don’t get me wrong. The workers in this industry have already paid for these mills and this equipment with their own sweat and blood. This industry is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, right up there with coal mining. These mills and this equipment already belong to the workers by virtue of what they’ve done and what they’ve sacrificed by any standard of fairness. If these workers and these com-munities are to buyout Louisiana-Pacific and the other companies [Georgia-Pacific and Pacific Lumber / Maxxam], it must be at a penny on the dollar, not full-market value.
“The companies have pitted their employees against the environmentalists by saying, ‘Well, the environmentalists want to shut the mills and put you out of work.’ This is a bald-faced lie, and we know it. When you realize that Redwood Summer is calling for sustainable-yield forestry, it all becomes very clear. It is the lumber companies themselves, in their search for profits, who are closing down mills and putting people out of work.”[49]
Grant went on to describe the three primary causes for the loss of timber employment, those being automation in both the mills and the woods, outsourcing, and overcutting. He also lambasted the corporations and their apologists for their hypocrisy in accusing environmentalists for being unconcerned about the well being of timber workers, summarizing the abysmal record of local corporations in their health and safety records:
“This lack of concern for their workers is further manifested in a variety of health and safety issues: You may have heard about the PCB spill at the Georgia-Pacific mill in Fort Bragg last year. Several workers were severely poisoned and many more needlessly exposed when an electric capacitor exploded in the mill, dumping this carcinogen on a number of people. The company did nothing, reassuring everyone that the fluid was harmless mineral oil. Only persistent efforts by workers got an investigation, and the case is now before the OSHA review commission.
“Another example is right here in Samoa, right at this Louisiana-Pacific pulp mill we’re standing in front of. There’s a thing inside there called a chlorine bleacher that they use to bleach the paper pulp with. Now, if that thing explodes and the wind is blowing the wrong way, everybody in Eureka is going to be killed inside of ten minutes. It’s a potential disaster like Bhopal. Yet an alternative technology exists; they could substitute the chlorine with a far less toxic substance called peroxide, but despite the record profits they make each year, L-P refuses to make this change. This company is not the workers’ friend.”[50]
What the timber workers' were most concerned with losing had been hard fought and won by the workers themselves through class struggle. Grant continued:
“Many of the conditions that workers take for granted today in this industry and region were achieved through the hard work and the sacrifice of Wobblies, sixty, seventy, and eighty years ago.
“What we advocate is worker ownership of the timber industry. Now this is a lot different than nationalization of industries, in which you substitute one boss, the private employer, with another boss, the State. What we support is real democracy in the workplace, by putting all the decision-making and the profits back into the hands of those people who actually do the work. This is the best assurance against environmental destruction, for it’s the workers who have an overwhelming self-interest in promoting safe and sustainable forms of production. After all, it’s the workers and their families who—under our current for-profit system—suffer the worst effects of pollution and work-related hazards.”[51]
A group of about fifty L-P mill workers did gather near the plant entrance beginning at around 11:30 AM, but these were willing apologists for L-P who had been dispatched, no doubt by the company, during their lunch break, all holding professionally manufactured counter protest signs. Each of them wore white hard hats and they stood in military fashion behind a police gauntlet, standing four abreast.[52] The signs included slogans such as “People are part of the environment”; “Strange Tourists”; “My kids are my future”; “Wrong way to Mississippi”; and “Read my lips: no logs to Mexico” [53], which was a repetition of the argument made by L-P that none of the logs from Samoa were being exported there—which missed the point entirely, which was that raw log exports anywhere was still a detriment to the local economy.[54] Still, L-P employee Mike Suttles parroted the standard corporate line that, “if (the activists were) successful, we won’t have a job”.[55] At one point, one of the mill workers repeated a widely held belief that the activists were being paid $3,500 per month to protest. The activists present stared in disbelief for an instant before all erupting with laughter at the absurdity of this myth.[56] No doubt they had been told to expect wild eyed, violent terrorists, or at least jobless pot smoking hippies who cared nothing about the concerns of timber workers.[57] What they witnessed instead, were demonstrators from all walks of life, some of them timber workers themselves[58], including nearby Simpson Pulp Mill hog tender Dave Chism and one of his fellow workers[59], as well as Veterans for Peace, students, and activists cheering and clapping, listening to speeches about the need to protect timber workers’ jobs. It was, in fact, the police gauntlet that halted the lumber trucks by blockading the entrance to the L-P mill.[60]
By this time, Dave Chism was not at all hesitant to openly support Redwood Summer and draw the connections between class struggle and deep ecology, stating:
“The sad part is that once the resources are gone, there won’t be any more jobs, and the environmentalists are going to be left holding the bag like they were to blame for shutting down the industry. In reality, it’s inevitable. In order to maintain sustained yield, if it takes 80 years to grow a marketable timber log, you can only log 1/80th of your property a year. They’ve overcut that rate for a long time, so a lot of these companies have what’s called a timber gap in their supply. I’ve heard that Simpson has a five to seven year gap in their timber supply. When they come to that point, what do they do for timber? They look to the national forest. But why should the national forest have to augment and support these companies because they’ve overcut for years? I mean that’s public land. Now they’re putting pressure on the national forests to cut, cut, cut…
“…I think it’s going to take a strong union to bridge the gap between environmental and labor groups, because anyone that works in a non union environment isn’t able to speak out. They’d be fired in a minute.” [61]
A great many of the demonstrators were locals, including Redway resident Calvin McMurphy, who declared, “we have to choose between what’s killing us, and what’s supporting us. The death of this ecosystem is the death of us.” Those “outsiders” that participated didn’t live much further away, such as Janice Barsky, of Occidental in western Sonoma County, which was still very much a part of the Redwood Empire. “Long after the chairman of the board of Louisiana-Pacific is retired the damage is already done—there’ll be no more jobs here. We’re here to keep (the timber workers) jobs not (just) this year, not (just) next year, but down the road,” she said.[62]
Even when most people are in agreement, at least in a specific group or coalition, there are always individual differences or rough edges that are never completely smoothed out, even through painstaking democratic consensus building. Likewise there are many instances of coordinated dance routines, or synchronized ballet that, through hours, days, and weeks of practice achieve a certain precision and perfection that is elegant in its display, but so obviously choreographed that even a casual observer can detect the scripting. Then, there are very rare instances where a group of people are in such resonances, such synchronicity, and the unconscious energy between them so fluid and harmonious, that they act as a unified whole, without any coercion, any coordination, or any planning whatsoever. The two hours that followed the speechmaking was one of those times.
Upon the conclusion of the speeches, while Earth First! reggae band Clan Dyken was setting up their equipment, demonstrators who had brought their own drums spontaneously began playing on their own in unison, which energized the crowd into an even more joyous state. Upon the conclusion of their preparations, Clan Dyken simply joined in the already dancing and gyrating crowd. According to most accounts, the crowd crossed the street, blocking the mill entrance in a manner that was so in tune with the music and so unified without any apparent planning or prompting from a leader or affinity group, that the stunned police were unprepared to offer any counter measures.[63] According to Beth Bosk, there had been a prearranged signal that clued in those that led the crowd across the street, but even if that were true, it worked so seamlessly and the crowd responded so cooperatively, it was barely noticeable at all.[64] The crowd blocked the plant entrance so that no logging trucks could either enter or exit. The truck driver at the front of the convoy was apparently inching forward, perhaps even willing to threaten the blockading demonstrators, when he was told to stop by a police officer. The trucker later told family members and coworkers that the police officer had told him that demonstrators were placing their small children in front of the truck, though what actually happened was that a boy, between ages of 8 – 13 had voluntarily been part of a large group that had blockaded it.[65] The police eventually coordinated amongst themselves enough to force a lane of traffic through the crowd, simply by walking forward through the happy crowd. The crowd simply responded by moving in front of the police line. At this point, a group sat down in front of an incoming log truck, while more climbed up on top of the truck, holding signs and banners.[66] Meanwhile, the crowd was chanting “Earth First!” so loudly, that the police instructions to disperse or be arrested were not heard by most of the demonstrators blocking and climbing on the truck.[67] While this was all happening, Clan Dyken played a 45 minute extended reggae jam from the stage. The police were simply overwhelmed and unprepared, at least for a time.[68]
When the police regained their composure a second time, they began arresting demonstrators on top of the truck. The first person arrested—in fact the first arrestee of Redwood Summer as a whole, was 44-year old Robert Serina, a graduate student in environmental studies at San Jose State University. Serina had joined in Redwood Summer because to him, Humboldt County was “a miniature Brazil. Large remotely controlled corporations are overcutting a temperate rainforest. It’s an issue of maintaining habitat.”[69] One of the other detainees was a “determined young man” named Ian Baitz, whose heavy-handed, if not brutal, arrest was shown on network television. Bruce Anderson’s elaborate description sets the scene:
“A chubby, weak Humboldt County deputy by the name of Lawson was sent up on the truck to clear it of demonstrators. The deputy twisted Baitz’ head while a couple of other cops, McCallister and Burkhart, tweaked his limbs. Finally, utterly frustrated with Baitz’ wiry, Spiderman clinging ability, Deputy Chubs maced the kid in the face. The mace should have been used first if it was necessary to us it at all.”[70]
Altogether, the police arrested 44 demonstrators; 3 of them were juveniles[71], 35 of them were men and the remaining 9 were women, one of whom was Lisa Henry.[72] Henry had agreed to participating in the direct action after attending one of the nonviolence trainings that took place at the Honeydew base camp the night before the demonstration. Henry had been in base camp as one of its organizers at the request of Earth First!er Jennifer Beigel. That training had been led by Tom O’Neil and David Solnit and it had covered a variety of scenarios, including one where the demonstrators sat in front of a logging truck while being harassed by police. That this is what actually happened is merely coincidence, though it was one of many likely outcomes. The training also covered the police’s use of pain compliance holds, passive resistance, arrest scenarios, and what to do in jail. The trainees were inspired enough to form an affinity group and had painted banners for the action and participated in the IWW picket, joining it shortly after Alexander Cockburn and a friend had gotten it going. Though a quickly organized affinity group runs counter to the normally accepted practice of creating such groups from close friends, comrades, and family members with years of connections between them, in the case of Redwood Summer, the organizers had agreed that it served their needs. The affinity group ultimately decided that blocking an actual logging truck would be a good strategy, and so late in the morning, during the demonstration, they met on the nearby beach and strategized. They quickly established the parameters of their action, including what time they would initiate their action, how they would block the truck, whether or not to climb it, and how members of the group would be able to identify themselves in the crowd (in this case, they used rainbow colored armbands).[73]
Despite all of this planning, the truck blockade action almost self-destructed due to an unforeseen circumstance. In an interview she gave to Beth Bosk several months later, Lisa Henry described how the blockade unfolded:
“we were lined up along the side of the road, very nervous, watching this stream of endless trucks go by, and all of a sudden, like two hundred deadheads and hippies just stream into the road and start dancing. There’s this drum circle and all the trucks stop. And the cops don’t know what to do.
“There are hundreds of cops now, and we looked around and everything had stopped. So our affinity group went out into the circle, and we roamed around looking for what we should be doing. We were wandering around the cop cars, and it was very surreal, because they weren’t stopping us.
“We were looking for the perfect moment and the L-P chip truck that was coming wasn’t the perfect moment, so we moved away and we saw this truck in the distance.
“And then we see this man from Seeds of Peace, and he’s standing—like the man in Tiananmen Square—with his arm straight out holding up the chip truck, and we’re like ‘What are you doing? Are you crazy? It’s a chip truck!’ and we start screaming for him to get out of the road so the chip truck could pass and so the log truck would come by.
“And he looked at us and he put his hand on his hip and he moved out and then the chip truck moved by and then this log truck came up and we all sat in front of it, and the roar went up from the crowd, this throaty roar sweeps across the crowd. Somebody has done something and here it is and it’s stopped. And people scramble up onto the truck and banners go flying and people are on the cab all of a sudden, and people are circling us, protecting us.
“And then the cops start methodically cutting off the people by making these lines and moving them out. And we started chanting, we talked—people were yelling at us, ‘Get out of the road!’ And we were saying why we were there, and the media was in our face.
“It was just like the rehearsal, except you were so focused on the circle. Nothing else mattered. It was like a blur.”[74]
Lawson was equally heavy handed with Lisa Henry as well as one of her friends when it came time for their arrest. Henry recollects:
“It was very painful. They started to arrest us and I tucked my head and did the whole thing, but they ripped my glasses off and did all these things to my face. But you don’t feel them at the time because you are so pumped up. They flipped me over backwards, and then (Lawson) stood on my leg and asked me if I would get up. And I was like, ‘You’re standing on my leg’. Of course I didn’t stand up…
“He picked out Ian. I don’t know how he picked out me, but I turned out to be feisty and boy, was he cruel with a compliance hold.
“He just kept me in the sucker really hard until I was walking and then I was arguing with him to loosen it because I was walking. Finally, he threw my hands out and said, ‘There!’ He was just a really cruel man. I took his name and his badge number. When you say ‘Officer Lawson’ around Humboldt people go, ‘Oh him, yeah.’ He has a temper and he’s known to be a mean person. Even other officers said that. The lawyers too, they’d had experiences with him…
“(It seemed like) they were trying out all these fancy new ways to hurt people and get them moving.
“You could see it on the video; they would try all these different holds—methodically. First they would pinch you, and then they would try to get your hands out, then they would do all these face holds. They would just like get progressively worse. One woman, they just went straight for her head without trying anything else, and just lifted her by her jaws and she was screaming in pain. It just seemed like this was, a game to them, this was the way to get protestors off the road. They’d all gone to this training workshop where they’d learned how to move people with pain.
“And the only thing that saved a lot of us was that we’d been trained the day before and we knew that we had a choice to get up or not. We knew what they’d do if they tried to move. And when we wouldn’t move we knew how to protect ourselves, and we knew the procedures all the way through. Strangely, that was very comforting.”[75]
Bob Serina refused to give his actual name, and instead provided the moniker, “George Washington,” which prompted some humorous (good natured) questions from one Humboldt County jail sheriff who later asked him how he could be against logging when he cut down a cherry tree, to which Serina replied, “That was OK (because) it was second growth.”[76] In a moment reminiscent of the movie Spartacus, all of the women who were arrested (as well as many of the men) gave their name as “Judi Bari,” which inspired Darryl Cherney to write the following song:
Look at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat,
See the front page photo: I wonder who is that,
It’s Judi Bari, don’t-cha think that’s neat-o,
She made the top fold right above Salcido.
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri,
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri,
Let’s repeat it endlessly,
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri.
Nine Earth First! women in the Humboldt County pen,
Busted for stopping an LP truck again,
Sheriffs asked them for their names all night long,
But they would only answer by singin’ this here song:
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri,
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri,
Let’s repeat it endlessly,
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri.
Little Lisa Bari, Judi’s pride and joy,
Judi made damn sure she didn’t have a boy,
She started children’s Earth First! She renounced her toy tree spikes,
Everybody says she acts just like:
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri,
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri,
Let’s repeat it endlessly,
Judi Bari! Judi Ba-ri.[77]
Log trucks were backed up for miles while demonstrators reveled, dance, sang, and gyrated and the police sorted everything out.[78] The arrests took nearly an hour to complete, and even the Eureka Times-Standard conceded that the arrestees were nonviolent, resisting passively if they resisted at all. Police detained the 44 arrestees in a mobile booking unit, though some were taken to the Humboldt County Jail in Eureka.[79] Eleven of the arrestees remained in jail for about a week and were released. 26 pleaded “no contest”, while 18 plead “not guilty”.[80] Ten of this last group had their case go to trial, whose outcome is described later. The law enforcement officers then proceeded to clear the log truck jam. 60 officers in riot gear formed a blockade, standing shoulder-to-shoulder along the roadside. They faced down the remaining protesters, who stood off the road’s edge, in a standoff which lasted for thirty minutes, forcibly restraining a handful that ventured towards the road. Police made no other arrests, however, and eventually both sides stood down and retreated.[81]
The mouthpieces for corporate timber were quick to spin the effort as a failure. L-P spokesman Shep Tucker described the demonstration dismissively as “a fizzle,” and, “mere political theater.” [82] Eureka Times-Standard reported Dave Forster described the protest as “tame” other than the arrests; evidently Forster considered police brutality par for the course and not worth reporting. He also counted 100 counterdemonstrators[83], even though many other sources placed the number at half that amount.[84] The Times-Standard editors, however, practically took their marching orders from L-P, because they likewise described the rally as a “fizzle” based on the outlandish notion that Redwood Summer organizers had promised that as many as 30,000 would show up—a claim that nobody in the Redwood Summer coalition had ever made (indeed, they would have counted themselves lucky if they could muster 3,000)—but greatly underestimated the crowd’s actual numbers at 300. It was clear, in any case, that the Times-Standard was decidedly hostile to Redwood Summer, dismissing it as “an effort to force change on the North Coast from outside” (let alone that most of its organizers were locals). The periodical sneeringly belittled the rally goers’ “Picnic-like air (which) belittles the real concerns of timber workers and others whose livelihoods may be directly affected by the kinds of changes radical activists are seeking.”[85] Evidently, the Times-Standard editors missed much of the rally—in which workers concerns were the primary focus of the protesters—or their own reporter, David Forster’s coverage, which included several sentences describing the pro-worker, but anti-corporate messages being conveyed by the demonstrators.[86] The consistently reactionary Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance covered the event with the headline, “Workers Hold Protest”, focusing primarily on the fifty counterdemonstrators[87] (who may or may not have been actual L-P employees, a fact that was not checked by the publication), but even they had to admit that the protest was nonviolent.[88]
Just about everyone who attended the demonstrations on behalf of Redwood Summer, including many grizzled old veterans with decades of political activism under their belts described the Samoa Rally as perhaps the best action in which they’d ever participated.[89] Mike Roselle called the demonstration as, “a good start…but this summer we’re going to have to mobilize people we don’t even know and we’ve never heard of.” [90] Most of the media coverage was favorable, even sympathetic.[91] Ukiah Daily Journal and Mendocino Beacon reported Keith Michaud, wrote several articles commenting in particular on the demonstration’s nonviolent nature.[92] The Santa Rosa Press Democrat even published an article titled, “Practice Makes Perfect Protest”.[93] The New York Times, while it grossly underestimated the size of the crowd, still was bold enough quote Art Harwood as saying, “the enemy is (not environmentalists, but rather) the quarterly report…trying to give stockholders a dividend has more to do with mismanaging our forests,” which was interesting considering that Harwood was neither a supporter of Redwood Summer nor was he present in Samoa that day.[94] Other national press coverage included Newsweek and Time magazine.[95]
Of course, the corporate press wasn’t actually singing Earth First!’s praises (and they scarcely mentioned the IWW at all), because the very same Press Democrat published an editorial that condescendingly and begrudgingly gives Redwood Summer credit for its nonviolence, but admonishes “both sides” to keep to that way[96], never once acknowledging the fact that Earth First! had never been anything but nonviolent, whereas the forces of reaction had been consistently violent in their response. The Times-Standard urged those in opposition to Redwood Summer to “ignore it” in hopes that it might quietly fade away, cautioning against responding with violence, implying that any violence perpetrated against the demonstrators would be provoked, a claim which was a standard corporate timber talking point.[97] The biased editorial led at least one letter writer, S Warner McGowin of Bayside, to respond, “the surest way to put an end to the redwoods is to ignore them.”[98] Additionally, while the reporting was mostly favorable, several Redwood Summer supporters objected to the persistent stereotyping of Redwood Summer demonstrators, including the use of such terms as “new-age space cadets”, “whirling dervishes”, and “spasmodic conga lines”.[99] Not all movement coverage was completely accurate in its reporting either. The Earth First! Journal, for example, said nothing whatsoever about the significant IWW presence[100], even though Alexander Cockburn[101], local Earth First!ers[102] and back-to-the-land activists[103] consistently gave the IWW due credit for its contribution.
Whether or not the omission of the IWW was directly related to it, Earth First! cofounder Mike Roselle revealed publically at the rally, in an interview given to Alexander Cockburn, that tension between the editors of the Earth First! Journal and Redwood Summer organizers (as well as rank and file Earth First!ers elsewhere) existed and were growing:
“There’s a big difference between, the grassroots reality of Earth First! and the national image we’ve projected…
"Another problem is that we have a newspaper, Earth First! Journal, in which we print a wide range of viewpoints. It’s easy to excerpt pieces from there and say, well, this is the kind of thing they support…
“There’s big debate in the grass roots of Earth First! over these issues. The problem is that Foreman doesn’t want to discuss the issues any more. He feels his words speak for themselves and he’s been misinterpreted. So the rest of us are left hanging and we have to deal with this dirty laundry that Foreman has left all over the place and to defend ourselves on positions we don’t even have. Any effort to resolve this has been met by the stubborn opposition of the current editors of the Earth First! Journal, John Davis and Dale Turner, two people (in Tucson) not involved with the grass roots of Earth First! and hand-picked by Foreman. There’s a lot of bitterness right now in Earth First! about the total loss of control of the paper and how, as grassroots organizers, we haven’t been able to address the most important issues. When we walk into the offices of the local peace committee some place and want some help on old growth, we don’t want to have to answer for David Foreman’s statements on immigration or his position on the future of tribal people in Ethiopia…
“We have newsletters, we communicate with each other pretty well, but it’s a real problem for us. We have this national newspaper which in name and in looks and the way it’s presented appears to be the voice of the grass roots movement when in fact they’re very arrogant and alienated from the grass roots movement, and this has become more of a problem every year, and right now it’s on the verge of coming to a head, because there’s so much dissension in the grass roots.”[104]
Mike Roselle’s statements foreshadowed even bigger tensions within Earth First! nationally that were yet to come during the rest of Redwood Sumer. There were some local disagreements among Redwood Summer supporters as well. The day after the rally, on KMFB radio, Andre Connors accused the Earth First! men (namely Darryl Cherney and Mike Roselle) along with Bruce Anderson and Alexander Cockburn with wresting control of the demonstration from the women who organized it. Naomi Wagner, countered the opinion of her good friend Connors, arguing that since the Samoa demonstration took place in the heart of Humboldt County, it made sense for the Earth First!ers from Humboldt County to organize it and set the tone. Since Cherney was one of the principle organizers of Southern Humboldt County Earth First!, what unfolded was logical. Connors was not satiated by this response and accused Wagner of “being in denial” over the issue.[105] Lisa Henry recalls, however, that after she gave an interview on CNN—just before she and the other 43 demonstrators were arrested, that Mike Roselle was very supportive of her presence.[106] The debate on sexism within Earth First! (as well as much of the “left”) is a debate that continues even today.
The public reaction was generally favorable. Still, one reader, no doubt an apologist for corporate timber, offered the obviously unconstitutional and repressive suggestion that, since demonstrations cost public money (because of the overwhelming police presence), demonstrators should therefore be required by law to post a bond in advance.[107] That the presence of police is not welcome by demonstrators, but obviously demanded by the capitalist class lest the masses start actually fighting back in the mostly one-sided class war against them, is evidently not a thought that enters the minds of people who make such proposals. As usual, Candace Boak’s crowd could be counted upon to clutch at the most obscure straws imaginable, and in this case they harped on the country in which the demonstrators’ cars were made:
“Earth First! claims they care about American Workers and their jobs. What hypocrisy. Did anyone notice that at the Samoa demonstration for Redwood Summer, that there were 136 import cars and 22 American cars. Of the 22 American made cars, most were rental cars, that belonged to the press.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of ironic that someone protesting the export of American jobs would drive an import?”[108]
The editors of the County Activist asked the sensible question, “Were they, perhaps, funky old used imports, bought secondhand in America?”[109] This was a likely scenario given the fact that most supporters of Redwood Summer were working class or student activists with little disposable income. Bruce Anderson put matters more bluntly, charging, “While you morons were honing your basic math skills in L-P’s Samoa parking lot, L-P was shipping logs and your jobs to Mexico. Don’t you think ‘It’s kind of Ironic’ that we never hear from your Humboldt coven unless it’s to defend destructive corporate practices?”[110]
Joe Pittengers, who drove the bus that carried some of the arrestees to jail called the demonstrators “rowdy” and sneeringly dismissed their concerns about finding bombs under their seats by suggesting that this was “no doubt a good precaution since there were so many (other) environmentalists in the area.”[111] Eureka resident George Babot, a Cuban ex-patriot, who had lived through the revolution, decried the presence of the IWW, arguing that the One Big Union sought to implement “a semiautonomous communist government, similar (to the one in Cuba)”[112], a charge the IWW whose membership was heavily anarcho-syndicalist influenced at the time would likely have disputed. Blue Lake resident Jean S. Lynch, whose husband was a fellow log truck driver of the one who was blockaded repeated the fanciful claims made by the latter that Earth First!ers had cajoled children into blockading his truck, stating, “I’m for freedom of speech, choice, etc.—whatever it takes to keep America free—but children in front of wheels? Spikes in trees, bombs in cars—non violence? I guess human life is cheap to these people. Doesn’t IWW mean ‘I won’t work’?”[113] Evidently Lynch was inclined to believe popular myth rather than conduct her own, independent research. One wonders how she would have reacted if she had discovered that “IWW” had also been said (by the employing class, naturally) to stand for “I want whiskey”. Less than a week later, the trucker’s mother-in-law, Gwen N. Gossett made the same claim—though it was disputed by the Times-Standard—along with the more familiar unsubstantiated charges that most of the demonstrators were not local, or that those engaging in civil disobedience were endangering their own lives as well as those of the workers.[114] Gossett was not at all enthused at being proven wrong, so she defended her original stance by arguing that anyone under eighteen was “a minor” and at least three of the arrestees had been juveniles and accused the Times-Standard (of all publications) of having an Earth First! bias![115]
Meanwhile, Louisiana-Pacific after having successfully outsourced jobs to Mexico, outsourced union busting to Mexico as well by threatening to halt further construction of its El Sauzal facility if the Mexican government didn’t agree to the company’s demands to use nonunion labor.[116] President Carlos Salinas de Gottari, no doubt fearing that the corporation’s job black mail could have negative political ramifications for his increasingly embattled career, caved in to Merlo’s threats and granted L-P a twenty-year permit to use nonunion employees to load and unload barges of raw logs (many of them exported to Mexico from Samoa). L-P had laid off 400 of these same employees for a month during the dispute.[117] Shortly after that, L-P’s Samoa mill received its first shipment of pine logs harvested from the Soviet Union.[118] Once again, L-P shareholders earned increased quarterly dividends.[119] None of these developments were caused by Redwood Summer, Spotted Owls, or Earth First!
Not all decisions when L-P’s way, however, and in the days just before the demonstration at Samoa, the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District Hearing Board denied the corporation’s permit to exceed pollution limits at its Arcata flakeboard plant six weeks before the exemption was set to expire, by a vote of 4-1, with Richard Brown dissenting, after seven hours of testimony.[120] The decision was a victory for environmental activists, particularly the North Coast Environmental Center (NEC), the Clean Air Network, and the Environmental Allergies Organization. Plant manager Art Green threatened more job blackmail, suggesting that production would have to be reduced in order to afford compliance[121], because, no doubt, L-P’s record profits were untouchable. In a separate, but not entirely unrelated development, the company also settled with the Pipe Trades District Council 51, after Air Pollution Control Officer Wayne Morgan agreed to the union’s demands for stricter NOx emissions controls.[122] Shortly after that, Simpson agreed to pay $310,000 in fines settling a case where two workers were permanently disabled and eight others injured by a pulp mill tank that collapsed due to willful negligence by the company in December of 1988.[123] OSHA had originally proposed penalties totaling $666,000, but the company successfully pressured the agency into reducing its fine, promising to “hire a safety manager,”[124] though in all likelihood, in the Orwellian world of corporate double-speak, the likelihood is such an officer would have sacrificed safety at the expense of profit, if the experience of the G-P mill workers was any sample. Still, any fine was better than no fine at all. Although it is not known whether or not the PCB spill in Fort Bragg and the public outcry that fallowed had any bearing on OSHA’s decision, Dave Chism communicated with Judi Bari fairly regularly and no doubt knew of the IWW’s efforts.[125] Redwood Summer and the confluence of forces that led up to it were starting to have an effect.
Redwood Summer also inspired likeminded coalition efforts, such as “Hardwood Summer” in southern Illinois and northern Missouri, focused primarily around Shawnee National Forest (the second smallest such designated woodland in the United States). There, a coalition of groups, including Earth First!, the IWW, and others, many belonging to the Regional Association of Concerned Environmentalists, had been organizing for over two years to prevent the USFS from liquidating and clearcutting forestlands in the area, in particular in Cave Valley. At stake was the last remaining habitat in Illinois of the endangered Swainson’s Warbler. RACE succeeded in halting the earlier sale, without the help of mainstream environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, which meant that RACE had to work with Earth First! in order to get any support. On July 20, timed to deliberately coincide with the Redwood Summer demonstration at Samoa, Earth First!ers established an encampment and round-the-clock vigil protesting a proposed Fairview timber sale in Shawnee National Forest. Protesters blockaded the logging road with tents, attempting to reclaim the road as a hiking trail, and also established three tree sitting platforms. Meanwhile, RACE, acting very much like its counterpart, EPIC, in Garberville, fought against the sale in the courts. On April 16, 1990, RACE had filed federal suits in Benton, Illinois, demanding a preliminary injunction, declaring that the sale violated federal law. The suits were in response to the USFS rejecting RACE’s appeals of the sale. The US Office of General Council (OGC), located in East St Louis, countered by requesting a SLAPP suit against RACE, arguing that the latter had cost the agency approximately “500 hours of administrative and legal work”, (essentially suggesting that participation in the legal process, presumably a democratic right granted to the American people by the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution came with an implicit price tag). The OGC called RACE’s suit “frivolous” and “harassment” of the USFS. The remedy sought would effectively bar members of RACE from ever filing suit against the Forest Service in perpetuity, a very chilling prospect indeed. RACE spokesperson Joe Glisson declared, “They’re trying to intimidate us, and it won’t work.”[126]
St Louis IWW members who were likeminded in their support for Earth First! as were those who had proposed an alliance of the two groups in the first place organized Earth First! – IWW Local #2 (evidently unaware of Pam Davis’ intention to do so in Santa Rosa prior to Bari’s and Cherney’s bombing).[127] No doubt partly as a result, Earth First!ers involved in the blockade made it very clear that they were not opposed to logging per se, nor were they intending to be hostile to the individual loggers. Indeed, loggers were welcome to come to the Earth First! base camp and dialog with the organizers who would offer suggestions on timberlands where restoration work was needed, or on the 4.5 million acres of forest land in Illinois that was much less sensitive than the proposed Fairview sale in Shawnee that could be sustainably harvested. In fact, local support for the blockade was said to be overwhelming, and many visited the base camp to offer support, including generous food donations, as well as join in evening folk-music sessions (many of which consisted of Earth First! and IWW songs). Earth First! – IWW Local #2 organizer Orin Langelle describes some of the reasons why:
“This tremendous response is due in part to the image created by EF! as defenders of the wilderness, which the locals respect as they want to see the Shawnee kept intact. Southern Illinois folk in the surrounding hills have always had an independent attitude against federal intervention (at one time a lot of moonshine came from here). Stories around the campfire show the local disrespect for the Forest ‘Service’ and their selling of our national heritage to the timber industry. Horror stories abound about logging trucks driving at high speeds, running school buses off the country roads. It is rumored that locals took their ire out against two logging skidders which went up in flames. Supposedly the skidders belonged to East Perry Lumber Company of Frohna, Missouri, reportedly owned by a German consortium which rapes Illinois land to provide lumber for Germany.”[128]
This was certainly a far cry from “new-age space cadets”, “whirling dervishes”, and “spasmodic conga lines”.
Notes:
[1] “Redwood Summer Protest at LP Mill Seeks Solidarity With Mill Workers”, press release by Kelpie Wilson, et. al., June 20, 1990.
[2] “Redwood Summer Protest at LP Mill Seeks Solidarity With Mill Workers”, press release by Kelpie Wilson, et. al., June 20, 1990.
[3] “Redwood Summer Protest at LP Mill Seeks Solidarity With Mill Workers”, press release by Kelpie Wilson, et. al., June 20, 1990.
[4] “Redwood Summer Protest at LP Mill Seeks Solidarity With Mill Workers”, press release by Kelpie Wilson, et. al., June 20, 1990.
[5] “Redwood Summer Protest at LP Mill Seeks Solidarity With Mill Workers”, press release by Kelpie Wilson, et. al., June 20, 1990.
[6] Ibid.
[7] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[8] Op. Cit.
[9] “Appointment in Samoa, Part 1”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[10] “Pulp Mills Warned: Shape Up or Be Sued”, by Tim McKay, EcoNews, April 1990.
[11] “Lawsuit Against L-P Possible”, press release, Country Activist, May 1990.
[12] “Pulp Mills Go Against the Tide on Dioxin”, by Andy Alm, EcoNews, June 1990.
[13] “County State’s No. 1 Toxic Water Producer: Environmental Group Releases Study”, Eureka Times-Standard, June 6, 1990.
[14] “Water Rates and Pulp Mills”, letter to the editor by Margaret Gipson, Eureka Times-Standard, June 12, 1990.
[15] “Mill Emissions Monitoring Inadequate, Official Says”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 13, 1990.
[16] “Production, and Pollution, on the Rise at L-P Plant”, by Andy Alm, EcoNews, June 1990.
[17] “Voters Soundly Reject Measures A, B, C”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 6, 1990.
[18] “L-P Spraying Hurts Fieldbrook”, letter to the editor by Barbara Carnam, Eureka Times-Standard, June 4, 1990.
[19] “L-P Hits Snag”, by Tim McKay, North Coast News, July 1990.
[20] “L-P Looking at Soviet Timber: Deal Could Fill North Coast Mills”, by Mike Geniella, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 15, 1990; and “Russian Timber Imports Likely”, by Keith Michaud, Ukiah Daily Journal, June 17, 1990.
[21] “Simpson Worker at Issue with Ad”, letter to the editor by Kevin Truby, Eureka Times-Standard, June 14, 1990.
[22] “Simpson Workers Picket Boss’s Home”, Eureka Times-Standard, Feb. 26, 1990.
[23] “Simpson Worker at Issue with Ad”, letter to the editor by Kevin Truby, Eureka Times-Standard, June 14, 1990.
[24] “Solidarity Forever: Wobs Rally to Support Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney", by Orin Langelle and Martin St. John, Industrial Worker, July 1990.
[25] “Redwood Summer Timeline”, by Karen Pickett, Earth First! Journal, Samhain / November 1, 1990; and Richard Johnson, Mendocino Country Environmentalist, various issues from June 1, 1990 – October 1. 1990.
[26] “Appointment in Samoa, Part 2”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 4, 1990.
[27] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[28] “Confusion Surrounds First ‘Redwood Summer’ Rally”, by David Forester, Eureka Times-Standard, June 20, 1990.
[29] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[30] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[31] “Appointment in Samoa, Part 2”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 4, 1990.
[32] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[33] “‘Redwood Summer’ Readies First Foray in Timber Country”, by Mike Geniella, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 17, 1990; “‘First!’ Protest a Preview to Second”, by Tobias Young, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 18, 1990; “Redwood Summer Officially Begins Today: Logistics Delay Selection of Demonstration Site”, by Bleys W. Rose and “Adversaries Close in Age, and That’s as Close as it Gets”, by Mike Geniella, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 20, 1990 (the adversaries referred to are Darryl Cherney and Shep Tucker); and “‘Summer’ Protests Get Hot”, AP Wire, Ukiah Daily Journal, June 20, 1990.
[34] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990; Forster’s count was disputed by letter writer Mason Swift in “‘Redwood Summer’ Has Local Support”, Eureka Times-Standard, July 6, 1990.
[35] “Police Arrest 44 in Redwood Protest”, by Katherine Bishop, New York Times, June 21, 1990.
[36] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[37] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[38] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[39] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[40] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[41] “Appointment in Samoa, Part 1”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[42] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[43] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[44] “A Samoa Report: Dancing on the Highway, the Joyous Revolution”, by Ricky in the Hills, Country Activist, July 1990.
[45] Video footage; reused in “Who Bombed Judi Bari”, film by Darryl Cherney and Mary Liz Thompson, 2012.
[46] Excerpts from a speech by Alexander Cockburn, Samoa, California, June 20, 1990.
[47] Excerpts from a speech by Alexander Cockburn, Samoa, California, June 20, 1990.
[48] “Enviro-Unionists: a Speech by Jess Grant”, transcribed by Brian Wiles-Heap from video, Industrial Worker, November 1990; Emphasis in the original.
[49] “Enviro-Unionists: a Speech by Jess Grant”, transcribed by Brian Wiles-Heap from video, Industrial Worker, November 1990; Emphasis in the original.
[50] “Enviro-Unionists: a Speech by Jess Grant”, transcribed by Brian Wiles-Heap from video, Industrial Worker, November 1990; Emphasis in the original.
[51] “Enviro-Unionists: a Speech by Jess Grant”, transcribed by Brian Wiles-Heap from video, Industrial Worker, November 1990; Emphasis in the original.
[52] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[53] Accompanying photograph, “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[54] Lumber Workers’ Jobs Hit the High Seas, Industrial Worker, February 1990; an abridged version also appeared in the Brigid (February 2, 1990) issue of the Earth First! Journal.
[55] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[56] “The Reinhabitant’s Perspective: Naomi Wagner”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, #51, August 1990.
[57] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[58] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[59] “The Scene at Simpson”, Dave Chism interviewed by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990; Chism’s coworker is mentioned but not identified.
[60] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[61] “The Scene at Simpson”, Dave Chism interviewed by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[62] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[63] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[64] “The Reinhabitant’s Perspective: Naomi Wagner”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, #51, August 1990.
[65] “Children Allegedly in Front of Trucks”, letter to the editor by Jean S. Lynch, Eureka Times-Standard, July 7, 1990; and “’Redwood Summer’ Protest Revisited.”, letter to the editor by Gwen N. Gossett, Eureka Times Standard, July 14, 1990. Even the anti-Redwood Summer biased Times Standard found this claim to be dubious and responded to the second letter writer stating:
“After checking with authorities and civilian eyewitnesses—including two of our news staff members—at the scene, the Times-Standard has been unable to verify reports of young children involved with log trucks during the events of June 20. We did verify that a boy estimated to be between the ages of 8 and 13 was one of a group of protesters who staged a sit-in in front of a truck in Samoa. No arrests involving young children were made.”
[66] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[67] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[68] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[69] “Stiff Sentence for Car Rider”, by Andy Alm, EcoNews, December 1990.
[70] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[71] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[72] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[73] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[74] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[75] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[76] “Serina Update”, by Bob Serina, Anderson Valley Advertiser, April 17, 1990.
[77] “Judi Bari, Judi Ba-ri”, by Darryl Cherney, 1990, unpublished; lyrics used by permission. “Salcido” refers specifically to Ramon Bojorquez Salcido, who was convicted of the 1989 murders of seven people, including his wife and two of his daughters. The sensationalism around Salcido’s case dominated the corporate press concurrent with Redwood Summer.
[78] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[79] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[80] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[81] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[82] “1990: A Year in the Life of Earth First!”, by Judi Bari, Anderson Valley Advertiser, January 2, 1991.
[83] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[84] Source?
[85] “‘Redwood Summer’ Fizzles”, editorial, Eureka Times-Standard, June 24, 1990.
[86] “Authorities Arrest 44 during ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, June 21, 1990.
[87] “Workers Hold Protest”, by Paul Denmark, Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance, June 28, 1990.
[88] “Demonstration Draws Police, Visiting Media”, by Paul Denmark, Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance, June 28, 1990.
[89] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 27, 1990.
[90] “Talkin’ Earth First!: an interview with Mike Roselle”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 4, 1990.
[91] See for example, “Hundreds Protest at Lumber Plant; 44 Arrested”, AP Wire, Lake County Record-Bee, June 21, 1990; “44 Arrests at ‘Redwood Summer’ Protest”, by Phil Garlington and Bill Israel, San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday June 21, 1990; “44 Arrested at L-P Protest: Two-Hour Blockage at Summer Rally”, by Mike Geniella and Bleys W. Rose, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 21, 1990; “‘Summer’ Protest Stays Cool: 44 Arrested at Samoa”, by Keith Michaud; and “Eureka Protest Kicks off Redwood Summer”, by Rebecca Snetselaar, Willits News, June 22, 1990.
[92] “Colorful Protest Remains Nonviolent”, by Keith Michaud, Ukiah Daily Journal, June 21, 1990; “‘Summer’ Protest Goes Well”, news analysis by Keith Michaud and “County Lawmen Praise Peaceful Protest”, by Keith Michaud, Ukiah Daily Journal, June 23, 1990; and “Demonstrations in Samoa Were Non-Violent”, by Keith Michaud, Mendocino Beacon, June 28, 1990.
[93] “Practice Makes Perfect Protest: Civil Disobedience Training Helped Wednesday Rally”, by Bleys W Rose, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 21, 1990
[94] “Police Arrest 44 in Redwood Protest”, by Katherine Bishop, New York Times, June 21, 1990.
[95] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[96] “The Show Goes On,” editorial, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 22, 1990.
[97] “‘Redwood Summer’ Fizzles”, editorial, Eureka Times-Standard, June 24, 1990.
[98] “Editorial’s Bias is Clear”, letter to the editor by S. Warner McGowin, Eureka Times-Standard, July 7, 1990.
[99] “Off Base Report”, letter to the editor, by S. Shaw, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, July 10, 1990.
[100] “44 Arrested at the L-P Mill”, press release, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[101] “Appointment in Samoa, Part II”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 4, 1990.
[102] “Redwood Summer is Here”, by Sequoia, Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Summer & Fall 1990.
[103] “A Samoa Report: Dancing on the Highway, the Joyous Revolution”, by Ricky in the Hills, Country Activist, July 1990.
[104] “Talkin’ Earth First!: an interview with Mike Roselle”, by Alexander Cockburn, Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 4, 1990.
[105] “The Reinhabitant’s Perspective: Naomi Wagner”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, #51, August 1990.
[106] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, interview by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[107] “Responsible Summer”, letter to the editor by Robert J Werra, Ukiah Daily Journal, June 24, 1990.
[108] Letter to the editor by K. R. Nelson, various publications, including Anderson Valley Advertiser, September 19, 1990 (“L-P’s Gang Girls”); and Country Activist, October 1990 (“More Drivel from Mothers’ Watch”).
[109] Response to “More Drivel from Mothers’ Watch”, editors, Country Activist, October 1990.
[110] Response to “L-P’s Gang Girls”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, October 1990.
[111] “A Rowdy Bunch at Demonstration”, letter to the editor, Eureka Times-Standard, August 7, 1990.
[112] “IWW Pickets in Redwood Summer”, letter to the editor by George Babot, Eureka Times-Standard, July 7, 1990.
[113] “Children Allegedly in Front of Trucks”, letter to the editor by Jean S. Lynch, Eureka Times-Standard, July 7, 1990.
[114] “‘Redwood Summer’ Protest Revisited”, letter to the editor by Gwen N. Gossett, Eureka Times-Standard, July 14, 1990.
[115] “Reader Disputes Eyewitnesses”, letter to the editor by Gwen N. Gossett, Eureka Times-Standard, August 7, 1990.
[116], “L-P Mexican Venture Falls Behind Schedule”, by Carrie Switzer, Willits News, June 22, 1990; and “L-P Says it Will Kill Mexico Venture if Labor Costs Too High”, by Mike Geniella, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 23, 1990.
[117] “L-P, Mexico Reach Pact on Labor Tiff; Plant Work May Resume Next Week”, by David Forster, Eureka Times-Standard, July 13, 1990; “L-P Granted Permit in Baja”, by Miriam Silver, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, July 17, 1990; and “…But Not With Unions”, EcoNews, August 1990.
[118] “L-P Deals With Kremlin…”, EcoNews, August 1990.
[119] “L-P Increases Quarterly Divident”, Mendocino Beacon, August 9, 1990.
[120] “L-P Air Variance is Overturned: Board Says 1989 Action on Arcata Plant in Error”, by David Forester, Eureka Times-Standard, June 15, 1990.
[121] “L-P Air Variance is Overturned: Board Says 1989 Action on Arcata Plant in Error”, by David Forester, Eureka Times-Standard, June 15, 1990.
[122] “Better Late Than Never”, EcoNews, July 1990.
[123] “Simpson Penalized”, EcoNews, August 1990.
[124] “Tank Collapse Will Cost Simpson”, by Charles Winkler, Eureka Times-Standard, July 10, 1990.
[125] “The Truth About Earth First! and Loggers: Response to Crawdad Nelson”, by Judi Bari, Anderson Valley Advertiser, December 26, 1990.
[126] “Showdown on the Shawnee”, by Orin Langelle and John Wallace, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.
[127] “Earth First! – IWW Local #2 Blockades Shawnee”, by Orin Langelle, Industrial Worker, October 1990.
[128] “Showdown on the Shawnee”, by Orin Langelle and John Wallace, Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh / August 1, 1990.