Birds Before The Storm

In what is essentially a textbook case of scapegoating, Fish & Wildlife have begun this years round of sea lion killing. For background about the whole thing, there’s an ORC article from two years ago that sums up the problem (the short version is: there’s a dam in the river that kills salmon, and the fish pool up at the base of it, so sea lions hang out at the base to hunt, but people get upset because they want to raise fishing quotas and can’t because the sea lions are eating some tiny percentage of the fish). Anyhow, In Defense of Animals set up a protest the day after the first killing of the season. We drove up to Bonneville Dam and had ourselves a little media spectacle of a protest. What matters, though, is a continued presence, to let people know that yes, folks are watching this despicable act.

I also got to see a fish ladder in person, and see some awesomely pretty fish. More pictures after the break.
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(click on image for poster-size pdf).

I got an email from the Chapel Hill Prison Books Collective with this poster, that goes over a few political prisoners with birthdays in march. The text on the poster is as follows:
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I’ve been continuing to document the Palomar Pipeline and its course through the public lands of Oregon. This time, I went out to the Solo Timber Sale (timber sales have funny names like “Straw Devil”, “Biscuit”, and, in this case, “Solo”). It was a controversial timber sale that’s been fought for by environmentalists and won. Tree sits were erected, rare lichens were found, and the courts and the public reached the conclusion that it ought not be logged. But, of course, pipelines are immune to all those pesky environmental restrictions, so they’re planning on punching right through this isolated, beautiful bit of old growth forest. A friend and I went up to explore, and I took my sturdy minivan on sketchy icy roads that of course I probably ought not have.

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I just returned from the PIELC conference in Eugene, Oregon. PIELC stands for Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, and it’s pronounced “e-law” owing to people’s fine habit of ignoring when things change their name.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about PIELC and the amazing workshops I went to, and you can learn all kinds of good stuff about biomass electrical generation (in short: it’s bad). Tonight though, I just came back from the saturday night show. Two bands played: Samba Já, a 30-piece drum corps; and Blackbird Raum, my friends and comrades from Santa Cruz. Activist and ex-prisoners Jeff “Free” Luers and Ramona Africa of MOVE.

Until his release last December, Jeff Luers had been in prison the entirety of my involvement with anarchism. The short of it was that he burned two SUVs at a car dealership in the middle of the night as a statement against car culture’s destruction of the earth, and was sentenced to 22 years for something like $40,000 dollars in damage. After years of appeals, his sentence was dropped to 10 years, which he served. He’s a natural speaker, and he talked about the need for the environmental and social justice (and anarchist) movements to stop being so divided. About how our commonalities are so much more important than our differences. That we need pretty much every tactic available to us: not just direct action, and certainly not just arson. We need lawsuits and marches, we need public awareness and we need media campaigns, and we need direct action.

Blackbird Raum has always been dear to my heart. I don’t want to talk shit, but I’m not really a fan of “folk punk,” by and large. Usually, it kind of takes the worst parts about bad punk (three random chords on a guitar, bad lyrics) and the worst parts about bad folk (lack of energy), and combines them into, well, the worst of both worlds. (Folk metal, by the way, is the inverse: the good stuff out of metal and out of folk). Anyhow, Blackbird Raum is the good stuff out of punk (anger and alienation expressed intelligently, plus the unity and comradery of mosh pits) and the good stuff out of folk (accordions, washtub basses, interesting and complex music, great shit to dance to). This was the first time I’d seen them on a stage and all electrified and such, but it was amazing nonetheless.

And then, Ramona Africa. Ramona Africa, well… in 1985, the philly cops firebombed the MOVE (a primarily african-american environmental organization) house, killing everyone except Ramona and one child. The fire eventually consumed the entire city block, all to stop the group from composting and broadcasting their political messages. Anyhow, Ramona is still part of MOVE, which continues to this day, and her speech was simply astounding. She was a keynote speaker earlier at PIELC, so I heard her twice today.

There’s that cliche, “all power to the people.” And you know? I’d never heard it explained. But it’s beautiful. The idea is simple: the power is always in people, in us as individuals. Governments only have power when we pretend like they do. If we stop believing they exist, they will cease to be. Obama doesn’t go to war: soldiers go to war. When we say “all power to the people,” we are saying “we are responsible for our fate. Always have been, always will be. The government isn’t going to stop oppressing us of its own free will.” We are awknowledging that we all have responsibility for what’s happening. We need to stop abdicating our power. We need to bring the power back to the people.

“The people,” isn’t just a mythical thing, an abstraction like “The Man.” “The people” is us. It’s not like “hey, we’re the people, so our protest is instantly right and everyone needs to agree with us, cause we’re the people.” It’s that we’re the people, you’re the people, even the people who hate us are the people. But we, the people, have all of the power. Always have, always will. It’s not a request, it’s not a demand, it’s a statement of truth.

On Sunday I went out with some friends to where the Palomar Pipeline is set to cross the Clackamas river. It’s one of the many, many places that this pipeline will be remarkably disruptive: in this case, running across a beautiful section of river and then clearcutting a whole bunch of old-growth. For fun, go ahead and check out the gas company’s myth-busting of common Palomar myths! For example:

MYTH: Palomar will require clear cutting, and the construction will destroy sensitive environmental areas.

Clearing the right-of-way is very different from the clear-cutting claims project opponents have made. Palomar proposes a temporary 120-foot-wide construction easement reduced to a 50-foot-wide permanent easement once construction is complete

this one is awesome cause it’s like: myth: we’ll be clearcutting. When in fact, we’ll be clearcutting. The myth about eminent domain is pretty good too.

anyhow, more pictures of the area after the break.

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Hurrah! The Hummer brand is going away.

I don’t know everything about this yet. But this morning, a 53 year old white software developer crashed his own plane into the IRS building in a suicidal direct action against the government. What is fascinating is that he wasn’t a libertarian, pro-business type, he was concerned with the greed and destruction of the capitalist system. The news I’ve read implies that two people were hospitalized and one person is missing, though I don’t know if this list includes Andrew Stack.

Before the attack, he uploaded a six-page rant about why he did it. The really short version is that he has been screwed by tax law again and again in his life, in particularly gross ways. I’ve pulled some excerpts below.

Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. … the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

and he ends with this:

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

In a six page impassioned letter, the corporate media (Fox and the BBC (what, you didn’t know the BBC was bullshit too?) sum him up by quoting “violence … is the only answer.”

note: I’m not convinced that violence is the only answer (but notice how easily the government and the public get all in an uproar about violence coming from anyone but police and the government? Yet police and soldiers act with a weird ethical impunity?). I’m actually not convinced that it’s useful at all: the government is really, really good at violence.

Last week it went all over the internets that South Carolina had passed a law requiring subversives to register. And that, internets, is what happens when we trust a conservative news blog. Turns out that actually what’s happening now is that the SC gov is trying to repeal that law cause it’s so obviously dumb.

So France is set to ban the burka. So… in the name of protecting women, they are going to harass and fine women. Yay. First of all, where does a country get off thinking they can ban various forms of dress? And how can anyone, remotely attached to ideas of liberalism or whatever, support this? I mean, I know how liberals can (and do, apparently) support this: they think that they can, by force of law, require women to abandon something that they think is oppressing them.

Now, I’m no fan of Islamic law. Or monotheism in general. But seriously. wtf.

From infoshop news:

PORTLAND – Dec 16, 2009 – Jeff “Free” Luers, political prisoner and environmental activist, was released from the Columbia River Correctional Institution this morning after serving nine and half years. Luers was originally sentenced in 2001 to twenty two years and eight months for the politically motivated arson of three SUV’s at a car dealership in Eugene, OR. This sentence was deemed grossly disproportionate to the damage sustained by the car dealership and was condemned by legal professionals, human rights groups and activists worldwide. At an appeal hearing in 2007 it was ruled that Luers’ original sentence was illegal, and was consequently reduced to ten years.

Luers’ release today comes after what Oregon Department of Corrections described as a ‘mistake’ when they released him early on October 20th this year. After a few short hours of freedom, Luers was taken back into custody in Eugene after the State agency reversed its decision and determined that he did not qualify under the new House Bill 3508 for an additional 10% reduction in sentence. DOC’s gross incompetence in this situation, and the emotional toll borne by his family and loved ones, is just one of many examples of the distressing levels of bureaucratic impropriety that Luers has endured during his years behind bars.

Upon his release this morning, Mr. Luers stated:

“The last 9½ years have been difficult at best. I have witnessed things in prison that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I have endured hardship and loss. Without a doubt, this experience has changed me. What hasn’t changed is my commitment to environmental and social justice.”

“I would like to thank all the people who have supported me through the years; especially the dedicated few who worked tirelessly to get me out of prison. I look forward to spending time with my loved ones and continuing my education, as well as continuing my activism.”

During his time in prison, seven of which were served in maximum security, Luers has maintained his activism by writing about environmental and social justice issues. In particular, he has continued to bring attention to the specter of human-induced climate change, the cause that motivated Luers to set fire to three SUV’s in 2000. Since his original sentencing, awareness of climate change has become omnipresent. It seems ironic that Luers has been released during the Copenhagen Climate Summit where world leaders are converging around the need for extreme action to be taken on global carbon emissions.

http://www.freejeffluers.org

It’s actually kind of strange to imagine Jeff out of prison. I got involved in anarchism right after he was sentenced. It’s almost like he’s been in prison my entire life or something. As strange as if Leonard Peltier or Mumia Abu-Jamal were suddenly released. But this is an excellent day.