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Speaker 1: Whole Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People did Cool Stuff show

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Speaker 2: that comes through your headphones while you're walking the dog.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today is

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Speaker 2: Sarah Marshall. Hy Sarah, Hello, I'm.

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Speaker 3: So happy to be here, especially as someone who grew

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Speaker 3: up as a tween ignorant about all of this but

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Speaker 3: wanting to find an excuse to live in a tree

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Speaker 3: for over a year.

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Speaker 2: Earthworce would have been the better group than the Earth

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Speaker 2: Liberation Front the thing that you can live in for

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Speaker 2: a year, as the Earth Liberation Front of solitary confined.

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Speaker 3: Oh god, I our producer, you're getting straight in it's

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Speaker 3: me Hy Sophie. Sophie.

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Speaker 2: Sophie's kind of a big deal around here.

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Speaker 1: That was really that was really funny.

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Speaker 2: Funny list than the audience listeners.

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Speaker 1: I won't know why it's really funny, but just know

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Speaker 1: it's really funny.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's what's fun is having inside jokes that.

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Speaker 2: Oh wait, the whole point of a podcast doesn't make

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Speaker 2: the listener think that they're part of the end whatever. No,

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Speaker 2: the point of the podcast is education and entertainment and

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Speaker 2: helping us do that is our audio engineer danel Hi

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Speaker 2: danel Hi, dannelh. Danel Our theme music was written for

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Speaker 2: Spyon Women and this is part two in a two

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Speaker 2: part are about the Earth Liberation Front, a group, a

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Speaker 2: leaderless group that did an awful lot of damage to

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Speaker 2: Earth destroyers that was very contentious at the time. It's

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Speaker 2: probably very contentious still. But it's kind of interesting to

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Speaker 2: watch the way that mainstream media talks about it these days,

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Speaker 2: because it's a little like, well, maybe we're all about

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Speaker 2: to die and we should do this, you know, Like

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Speaker 2: even like mainstream media's was just a little bit like,

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Speaker 2: this is probably not the right way to go about it.

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Speaker 2: I'm running out of my is like that's they could

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Speaker 2: see the facade crack. I don't know, I'm grinning while

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Speaker 2: I say this, maybe because it's.

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Speaker 3: Kind of funny. Yeah, I mean, the question of who

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Speaker 3: gets called an extremist in American media is very interesting,

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Speaker 3: right because it's clearly all about what kind of an

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Speaker 3: extremist you are, and they're like certain extremists who were

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Speaker 3: in favor.

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Speaker 2: Right now yeah, no, totally, And there's like all this

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Speaker 2: the FEDS who are currently leading and I'm completely ill

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Speaker 2: to get to that at the end all right, where

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Speaker 2: we last left our heroes, they were being hippies tagging

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Speaker 2: we don't like America on rest stops. They were tagging

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Speaker 2: five hundred and four years of genocide around Columbus Day,

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Speaker 2: and then burned down a truck, and so they hadn't

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Speaker 2: really done much yet, but they were starting to. The

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Speaker 2: fires at the Ranger Station were started by people from Warner,

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Speaker 2: and soon they expanded into the largest and most prolific

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Speaker 2: cell of the ELF in the US and possibly the world.

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Speaker 2: But I'm not entirely certain about that, and I've seen

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Speaker 2: an awful lot of narratives about exactly who did this,

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Speaker 2: or rather who was behind it. On some level, we

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Speaker 2: like kind of know, right because almost everyone involved has

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Speaker 2: pled guilty, But some of them have basically said I

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Speaker 2: pled guilty to some shit I did and some shit

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Speaker 2: I didn't do, because they're like, hm, I was going

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Speaker 2: to go to prison for the rest of my life

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Speaker 2: unless I said I did it, including things that I

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Speaker 2: didn't do. And that's a whole separate thing about the

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Speaker 2: way that the judicial system makes people lie. But in

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Speaker 2: the end, there are almost twenty people arrested in connection

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Speaker 2: to this particular cell of the Earth Liberation Front most

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Speaker 2: about ten years later, and every narrative picks a different

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Speaker 2: sort of like ring leader or whoever to blame, partly

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Speaker 2: because they're all like, who's the leader, who he was

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Speaker 2: in charge? Because people can't wrap their fucking head around anarchists.

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Speaker 2: It's hilarious. The narrative I find most convincing is that

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Speaker 2: this cell started from late night talks at Warner Creek

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Speaker 2: and about what was happening to the planet and what

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Speaker 2: needed to be done. That's the one I've been going with.

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Speaker 2: But I've heard a lot of narratives around this, And

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Speaker 2: in that narrative, there's this punk guy, Jacob Ferguson. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: he's called the leader. He was. Certainly it's undoing, so

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Speaker 2: if that's how we define leader, we can go to that.

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Speaker 3: But generally.

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Speaker 2: He was a quiet man and sort of a bad boy.

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Speaker 2: He did drugs and he played punk rock, and he

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Speaker 2: was angry, and he had like a lip ring and

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Speaker 2: septim ring and stuff. Imagine a bad kid, white kid

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Speaker 2: from a rough background in the nineteen nineties, and you

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Speaker 2: have successfully pictured Jacob Ferguson.

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Speaker 3: All right, yeah, I see him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And supposedly it all started when basic. It was like,

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Speaker 2: y'all talk a lot of shit, but are we gonna

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Speaker 2: do anything? And his nickname was a donut.

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Speaker 3: Why I don't know, because cops can always find him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it should have been a sign to everyone all along.

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Speaker 3: Oh no.

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Speaker 2: And then there was this older hippie anarchist. His name

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Speaker 2: was William Rogers, also known as Avalon. I think his

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Speaker 2: name is face, yeah, right.

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Speaker 3: Like because it was his favorite Brian Faerie song Avalon.

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Speaker 2: I actually don't know that reference. But Avalon is a

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Speaker 2: mythical island lost in the fog. Sometimes uses like a

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Speaker 2: shorthand for the old ways, for the pagan world before

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Speaker 2: Rome civilized England and start all the fucking nonsense we're

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Speaker 2: dealing with today. And I I like it. I don't know,

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Speaker 2: because I'm a sucker for mythology and magic and shit,

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Speaker 2: and I'm really good at blaming everything on England. But

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Speaker 2: I'm going to go a step further and blame everything

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Speaker 2: on the Roman Empire.

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Speaker 3: Fair enough.

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Speaker 2: Just look at him, I know, look at them. Avalon

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Speaker 2: was a venerable old man. He was thirty years old

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. All the media is always like

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Speaker 2: the old guy who led it, because he's the one

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Speaker 2: who gets pegged as the leader of everything because he's

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Speaker 2: older than everyone. He was thirty years old in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety five when Warner Creek started. He'd already been involved

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Speaker 2: in Earth First for a few years. He'd been living

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Speaker 2: out of his truck, going from protest to protest to organize,

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Speaker 2: and at one point he lived in a snow cave

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Speaker 2: with three other people in Idaho as part of an

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Speaker 2: Earth First encampment shortly before Warner Creek. So he was

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Speaker 2: one of the more experienced people who showed up to

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Speaker 2: Warner Creek. He gets called the mastermind of the whole

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Speaker 2: thing by the government. It's possible. We don't know. And

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Speaker 2: one reason we don't know is because everyone well, cause

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Speaker 2: there's assatual limitations on terrorism, and even the people who've

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Speaker 2: confessed are a little tight LittD about some shit. But

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Speaker 2: after his arrest, Avalon kills himself in jail, and so

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Speaker 2: we don't know his position on a lot of things.

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Speaker 2: The government, they're pretty old fashioned, and I've seen the

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Speaker 2: oldest white male be assumed to be the leader before.

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Speaker 2: It Just you know, there's a group of people, you're like,

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Speaker 2: who's in charge?

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Speaker 1: And you just like I was gonna say, it's like

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Speaker 1: when you're at dinner and people get like, give give

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Speaker 1: the oldest man there the check, when it's when it's me,

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Speaker 1: the tiny blonde person.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely don't.

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Speaker 1: They don't even like look at the name on the

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Speaker 1: credit card. They just they just automatically assume it's like

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Speaker 1: the eldest white man there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like hello, mister Sophie.

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Speaker 1: I like that.

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Speaker 2: And in this case, it's kind of interesting because like,

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Speaker 2: if I die, don't do that. You can blame anything

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Speaker 2: that I would consider ethical on me. You can just

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Speaker 2: like whether or not I did it. Like I have

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Speaker 2: a friend who once got convicted of like doing all

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Speaker 2: of the black block destruction at this protest that probably

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Speaker 2: like thirty people where I'm making this number up. I

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Speaker 2: wasn't there, but probably it would have taken a lot

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Speaker 2: of people to do that much damage. And one one

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Speaker 2: person got convicted of all of it, and he's just like, yeah, sure,

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Speaker 2: totally I did all of it. I'll take I'll take

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Speaker 2: the social capital. I already did the jail time, you know.

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Speaker 2: Christ Yeah, anyway, avalon the government, you know, decides this,

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Speaker 2: probably him, but I don't know. However, the cell started.

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Speaker 2: It started. They burned up a truck at a ranger

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Speaker 2: station because they didn't like the forest services complicity and

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Speaker 2: old growth logging, and that was their first fiery thing. Right.

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Speaker 2: Soon enough, this group gets called the family, and there

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Speaker 2: are almost no references to the actual people in this

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Speaker 2: cell referring to it as the family. This is what

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Speaker 2: the Feds and the media refer to it as it is.

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Speaker 2: It's possible that they occasionally call themselves the family, but

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Speaker 2: like in all the discovery, there's not a lot of that.

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Speaker 3: And do you think that's because the media knows that

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Speaker 3: something sounds more sinister if you call it by something

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Speaker 3: that in the recent past has been preceded by the

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Speaker 3: word manson.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I genuinely think that that is what's going on.

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Speaker 2: There's this whole thing later where some of the defendants

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Speaker 2: like are just being edge lords and start playing into

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Speaker 2: that when they're like already in prison. But whatever. So

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Speaker 2: they are the most successful cell, their liberation front, and

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Speaker 2: their security culture is top notch. They took their shit

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Speaker 2: serious across dozens of fires and actions. There wasn't a

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Speaker 2: single bit of DNA evidence that was ever brought back.

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Speaker 2: They wore socks over their shoes to disguise their footprints.

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Speaker 2: They wipe down everything for their fingerprints. In order to

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Speaker 2: assemble what they needed. They'd build these clean rooms like

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Speaker 2: they'd rent a hotel room and then put a tent

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Speaker 2: inside the hotel room, and then put on painter suits

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Speaker 2: and then go into the tent.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: They took their work very seriously. Someone probably avalon the

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Speaker 2: government alleges as much. And I see no reason why

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Speaker 2: to let anyone else take the credit or blame for

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Speaker 2: this rode. A zine called It's very evocative title setting

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Speaker 2: fires with electrical timers, which I.

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Speaker 3: Love because that could also be like somebody's MFA the

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Speaker 3: asso say uva yeah totally, and like movement, yeah totally.

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Speaker 2: And so this zne was a modern dance masterpiece, and

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Speaker 2: it talked about some dance moves that I am one

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Speaker 2: hundred percent not going to talk about on air, and

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Speaker 2: that I have avoided even reading the zine. The zine

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Speaker 2: came out and suddenly it was harder for the government

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Speaker 2: to map out which cells did which action because they

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Speaker 2: all used the same technology. They also didn't all know

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Speaker 2: each other, or they didn't see each other very much.

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Speaker 2: Most of them dropped out of the movement to avoid

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Speaker 2: putting anyone else at risk and avoid drawing attention to themselves,

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Speaker 2: and it was a lonely life. They passed notes to

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Speaker 2: each other by all getting the same book and then

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Speaker 2: like building ciphers that are like open the dispossessed and

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Speaker 2: turned a page blah blah blah, line number word, blah

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Speaker 2: blah blah.

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Speaker 3: You know. Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were early adopters of encrypted email. They used PGP,

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Speaker 2: but more than that, they would leave notes for each

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Speaker 2: other in the drafts folder of a shared email address

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Speaker 2: that they would log into only at public libraries.

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Speaker 3: This is real, like mission impossible type stuff.

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Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, they're one of these people who was on

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Speaker 2: the run for twelve years has like some wild shit.

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Speaker 2: We're going to get to one of them at least

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Speaker 2: lived in Canada the entire time, and we just sneak

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Speaker 2: across the border for actions and then sneak back home,

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Speaker 2: which is probably a good like alibi. I wasn't even

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Speaker 2: in the country. It is a pretty strong.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: In all their actions, no one was killed or harmed.

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Speaker 2: They went through elaborate efforts to make sure of that.

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Speaker 2: And on Beltane nineteen ninety seven, pretty early on They

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Speaker 2: released their sort of inaugural communicae, and I'm going to

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Speaker 2: read it. Welcome to the struggle of all species to

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Speaker 2: be free. We are the burning rage of this dying planet.

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Speaker 2: The war of greed ravages the earth, and species die out.

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Speaker 2: Every day. ELF works to speed up the collapse of industry,

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Speaker 2: to scare the rich, and to undermine the foundations of

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Speaker 2: the state. We embrace social and deep ecology as a

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Speaker 2: practical resistance movement. We have to show the enemy that

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Speaker 2: we are serious about defending is sacred. Together, we have

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Speaker 2: teeth and claws to match our dreams. Our greatest weapons

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Speaker 2: are imagination and the ability to strike when least expected.

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Speaker 2: Since nineteen ninety two, a series of Earth Nights and

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Speaker 2: Halloween smashes as mushroomed around the world. Thousands of bulldozers,

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Speaker 2: power lines, computer systems, buildings and valuable equipment have been composted.

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Speaker 2: Many ELF actions have been censored to prevent our bravery

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Speaker 2: from inciting others to take action. We take inspiration from

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Speaker 2: the Luddites, levelers, diggers, the autonom squatter movement, the alf,

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Speaker 2: the Zapatistas, and the little people. Those mischievous elves of

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Speaker 2: lore authorities can't see us because they don't believe in elves.

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Speaker 2: We are practically invisible. We have no command structure, no spokespersons,

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Speaker 2: no office, just many small groups working separately, seeking vulnerable

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Speaker 2: targets and practicing our craft. Many elves are moving to

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Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest in other sacred areas. Some elves will

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Speaker 2: surprises as they go. Find your family, and let's dance

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Speaker 2: as we make ruins of the corporate money system.

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Speaker 3: What I love about that is how it, you know,

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Speaker 3: brings in the legacy of you know, the we folk

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Speaker 3: and the fairies of.

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Speaker 2: Avalon.

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Speaker 3: I guess really where we have this, you know, contemporary

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Speaker 3: idea of fairies is like very cute and feminine, and

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Speaker 3: I guess, you know tinker Bell is part of some

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Speaker 3: kind of heredity because she'll kill a bitch. But that really,

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Speaker 3: like the legacy of the magical creatures that folklore told

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Speaker 3: of was that they were part of nature and if

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Speaker 3: you turned your back on them at the wrong moment,

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Speaker 3: they could destroy if they felt like it, and that

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Speaker 3: that was part of their mischief. And I don't know,

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Speaker 3: I love that. I mean, I feel like the earth

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Speaker 3: needs protectors, but sort of showing where you are in

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Speaker 3: the legacy of that not that not that the goal

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Speaker 3: is to convince the people who are trying to arrest

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Speaker 3: you of the righteousness of what you're doing. But it's

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Speaker 3: it's it's convincing. It's literature. I think, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, it's really well written. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. I

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Speaker 2: really actually when you're saying, how like, you know, fairies

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Speaker 2: in such a scene as like feminine? Now right, but

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Speaker 2: one of the really the more I read medieval history,

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Speaker 2: the more I realize that the feminine was terrifying to

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Speaker 2: the medieval year of mind. It was the feminine claims

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Speaker 2: a lot wildness. It was unpredictability and violence, and like

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Speaker 2: you know, it was cool.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And the other thing I love about this is they

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Speaker 2: specifically say we have no command structure. The FEDS spend

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Speaker 2: They're still trying to wrap their head around who is

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Speaker 2: in charge.

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Speaker 3: Augh, I love it.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety seven, the ELF moved on to not

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Speaker 2: what they're most famous for, but what they're best at,

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Speaker 2: the thing that you can point and say they accomplish

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Speaker 2: their strategic goals. Here, the Elf saved horses. You see,

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Speaker 2: thank god. Yeah, there are these wild horses living all

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Speaker 2: over the US. Especially out west in Nevada and Wyoming

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Speaker 2: in particular, and kind of like eastern California, like all

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Speaker 2: the high, dryish parts of the country that are kind

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Speaker 2: of flat. And I've read eighty two thousand horses currently.

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Speaker 2: I've read two hundred thousand horses currently, probably the answers

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Speaker 2: in between those I don't know. And this population of

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Speaker 2: horses is under management of the Bureau of Land Management,

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Speaker 2: which is not my favorite governmental institution. Their population is

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Speaker 2: managed by them being rounded up and theoretically adopted out

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Speaker 2: to loving homes, right, because there's only so many wild

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Speaker 2: horses that can live in the planes and stuff, right,

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Speaker 2: so they you know, the nice version of the story,

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Speaker 2: the version of the story that's like, oh, they plant

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Speaker 2: six trees for everyone they cut down, is that they

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Speaker 2: round up these horses, the extra ones, and they adopt

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Speaker 2: they find adoptees, and they you know, the government's like, oh,

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Speaker 2: we make them do all this paperwork. We show up

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Speaker 2: like three times before they can resell, like you know,

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Speaker 2: ah blah blah blah.

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Speaker 3: They go to a nice farm up state.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what was actually happening, according to an awful

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Speaker 2: lot of journalism, but not according to the BLM. What

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Speaker 2: was happening was that they were basically being adopted and

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Speaker 2: then turn around and sold to slaughterhouses. Yeah, mostly they

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Speaker 2: were being sold to one slaughterhouse because there was more

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Speaker 2: or less only one operating in the US at the time.

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Speaker 2: It was called Cavel West. Horse meat is not served

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Speaker 2: in the US Traditionally, it is outright banned and a

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Speaker 2: ton of states. This didn't stop slaughterhouses from slaughtering horses

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Speaker 2: and selling the meat internationally. Even though there was no

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Speaker 2: national you couldn't sell the meat nationally. Eventually, this was

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Speaker 2: officially stopped in two thousand and seven. It wasn't actually

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Speaker 2: technically banned, but what happened was all the slaughterhouses had

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Speaker 2: to be inspected, and the government didn't put money aside

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Speaker 2: to inspect the hot orse slaughter houses, so it was

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Speaker 2: effectively banned.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting.

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Speaker 2: So what happens now is that tens of thousands of

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Speaker 2: horses that are exported alive to slaughterhouses in other countries.

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Speaker 3: But oh okay, so wait are like are French people

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Speaker 3: eating wild caught American horses? Not to pin it all

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Speaker 3: on the French.

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Speaker 2: But American horse meat is often considered a delicacy in

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Speaker 2: countries that eat horses.

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Speaker 3: It feels kind of wrong when it happens to us.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's fine for Americans to plunder other countries

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Speaker 3: because that's a natural order.

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Speaker 2: Go to war against France.

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Speaker 1: Let they know that all the things put in American foods,

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Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think you want. I can't

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Speaker 1: even imagine what's an American horse food.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the wild cut, that's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they've gorged themselves on soda cans and.

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Speaker 1: And all the things we put in our soil that

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Speaker 1: we're not supposed to put it in our soil.

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Speaker 2: And you know what, they don't gorge themselves on because

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Speaker 2: all of these things are carefully constrained and don't litter.

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Speaker 2: All of them are totally an Yeah. But I'm also

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Speaker 2: lying because we have no knowledge of whether or not

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Speaker 2: they're environmentally sustainable. The things that we're about to.

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Speaker 4: Talk about, no idea, but here they are anyway.

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Speaker 2: And we're back. So overall, the US shares the English

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Speaker 2: language country taboo on horse meat. However you feel about

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Speaker 2: horse meat, it's still fucked up that people are opting

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Speaker 2: these horses just to sell them to slaughter houses. Yeah,

352
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Speaker 2: and if you're only judge for moralities. Legality, Well, it's

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Speaker 2: also not legal to do so. The FBI put together

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Speaker 2: a team of three hundred agents working around the clock

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Speaker 2: to get to the bottom of the corruption within the

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Speaker 2: BLM and their complicity and the illegal horse slaughter programs.

357
00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:21,359
Speaker 2: Just kidding. In the end, they put three hundred agents

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Speaker 2: together to arrest the people who stopped the illegal horse

359
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:29,920
Speaker 2: slaughter program, the Earth Liberation Front. They decided to address

360
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Speaker 2: this problem directly. On July twenty first, nineteen ninety seven,

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Speaker 2: the elves went to Redmond, Oregon, to the only West

362
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Speaker 2: Coast horse slaughterhouse I've also read the only one in

363
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Speaker 2: the country, I'm not certain, and they burned it to

364
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Speaker 2: the ground. No horses or people were injured in the process.

365
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Speaker 2: This slaughterhouse was never rebuilt. On November twenty ninth, nineteen

366
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Speaker 2: ninety seven, elves led about five hundred horses and fifty burrows,

367
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Speaker 2: which were donkeys for US East Coast people let them

368
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Speaker 2: free at a BLM wild Horse Corral and Oregon in

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Speaker 2: the fittingly named town of Burns, Oregon, and then they

370
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Speaker 2: burned that corral to the ground. A Syrian American software

371
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Speaker 2: engineer named Joseph Dibbi designed and planned the incendiary that

372
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Speaker 2: destroyed the wildhorse slaughterhouse, and later in two thousand and one,

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Speaker 2: he would burn another BLM wildhorse facility or he only

374
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Speaker 2: did the one, and he's one of the people who

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Speaker 2: later pled guilty that says that he did some of

376
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Speaker 2: the things that he pled guilty to. And yeah, across

377
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Speaker 2: the West, the ELF set wild horses free in direct

378
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Speaker 2: response to the slaughterhouse pipeline. I've read a few different

379
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Speaker 2: accounts that claim that these actions forced the national conversation

380
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Speaker 2: on the issue and led to the two thousand and

381
00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 2: seven ban. That might be true, but I also know

382
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Speaker 2: that they specifically and directly saved thousands of wild horses

383
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Speaker 2: lives and stopped the only place that people were selling

384
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Speaker 2: their wild horses to illegally. And then then they did

385
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 2: the thing that got them famous. Yes, if you've ever

386
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Speaker 2: thought about the Earth Liberation Front a radical environmentalists, and

387
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:09,240
Speaker 2: you picture a picture of building on fire, there is

388
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:11,960
Speaker 2: a photo from Veil that is the picture that you're

389
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 2: thinking of. They burned down a huge chunk of veil,

390
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 2: the busiest ski resort in the country. Oh wow, Yeah,

391
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:24,880
Speaker 2: without hurting anyone that's impressive. Yeah, this is their big one.

392
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Speaker 2: This is their biggest is twelve million dollars fire. Most

393
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,640
Speaker 2: of their fires willow half a million million.

394
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Speaker 3: Yeah.

395
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,479
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety eight, Veil was set to expand eight

396
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:38,000
Speaker 2: hundred or two thousand acres. I've read both into Lynx habitat,

397
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 2: and there was this huge movement against it all the

398
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 2: like grassroots local people like getting together to be like, hey,

399
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 2: don't you think your ski resort's big enough and maybe

400
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 2: the links and the natural world get a little bit

401
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 2: of stuff. And they were like, we don't think that,

402
00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 2: and so environmentalists sued and they lost. The court sided with.

403
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 3: They were like, white people love almost dying, so yeah,

404
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 3: you know.

405
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,240
Speaker 2: And then Robert came in and was like, well what

406
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,639
Speaker 2: if they actually die sometimes and then just make it

407
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 2: slightly more dangerous self correcting problem. But on October sixteenth

408
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:22,919
Speaker 2: they start cutting. On October eighteenth, smelves arrived. They actually

409
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 2: I think this one they actually showed up earlier and

410
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 2: tried to do it, I think probably on the sixteenth,

411
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 2: but they didn't succeed for one reason or the other

412
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 2: and had to go back down the island and then

413
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 2: come back later on October eighteenth, Samelves arrived. They got

414
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 2: snuck in a snowstorm, but regardless, they made their way

415
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 2: up the mountain in the middle of a fucking snowstorm

416
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 2: and they burned twelve million dollars of buildings.

417
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Speaker 3: Wow.

418
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 2: Two hunters had been sleeping in a free standing restroom

419
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 2: on the property Avalon, according to the Denver Post, opened

420
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 2: the bathroom door to check to see if anyone was inside.

421
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 2: He saw the hunter, So they didn't burn that building,

422
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 2: which implies that they checked every building for people. The

423
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 2: fire absolutely could have spread and killed those two men,

424
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 2: but it was also the night of a wild snowstorm

425
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 2: and none of the fires spread at all, And so

426
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 2: a lot of the allegations by the government, which are understandable,

427
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 2: is that fire is notoriously uncontrollable in some ways, right,

428
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 2: and it absolutely could have spread. However, there are thousands

429
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 2: of actions over the years that this is happening in

430
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 2: which no one was injured, So I think it's not

431
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 2: a coincidence. Yeah, the first responders knew it was arson

432
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 2: because these were individual fires that were not connected to

433
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 2: each other. There was not one big fire that destroyed

434
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 2: everything was very carefully done. The only evidence that they

435
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 2: left it all was some quickly melting footprints, and they

436
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 2: probably had socks over the shoes, and they sent a

437
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 2: communicate the next day from a Denver library. However, this

438
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 2: fire did not stop Vale's expansion. What it did stop

439
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 2: up was the local environmentalist movement that was working to

440
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 2: fight veil. There were people planning civil disobedience on the

441
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 2: mountain that night, according to one thing I read, And

442
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 2: it never happened, right because the buildings caught fire, and

443
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,640
Speaker 2: the local environmentalists had their houses raided, and everyone got

444
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 2: paranoid and divided and just did it fucked things up,

445
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 2: and the family and the elf attacked timber companies and

446
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 2: paper mills, they attacked genetic engineering research facilities, they attacked

447
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 2: suv dealerships and logging machines. Other cells across the country,

448
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 2: burned subdivisions under construction and like McDonald's and shit like that.

449
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 2: All the while, the anarchist movement in the Northwest is

450
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 2: ramping up, and then it kind of kicked off onto

451
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 2: the world stage with the World Trade Organization protests in

452
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 2: Seattle November nineteen ninety nine. And at these one day,

453
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a hole thing on WTO and

454
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 2: the anti globalization movement. But today's not that day, but

455
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 2: environmentalist teamsters, hippies, punks, and everyone descended on the city

456
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 2: of Seattle to stop world leaders from carving up the

457
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 2: world to exploit basically these free trade agreements that are

458
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 2: basically like, how do we avoid economic protections and developing

459
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 2: nations so that the developed nations can more effectively extract

460
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 2: their resources, which is a thing that has a direct

461
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 2: and calculable body count. And I think that's worth understanding

462
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 2: because then, like what ends up happening, right is the

463
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 2: infamous Black Bloc entered the American stage, anarchists wearing all

464
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 2: black and masks directly attacked corporate property, smashing at McDonald's

465
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:43,439
Speaker 2: and shit like that. And before that.

466
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 3: When Americans pictured an anarchist, that they just have a

467
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 3: mental image of Sacho and Vanzetti.

468
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 2: I think so. I think that the overall assumption about

469
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 2: what an anarchist is was like mad Bomber until nineteen

470
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 2: ninety nine when it became punk in a throwing a

471
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: brick at a Starbucks.

472
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 3: When it became day to night.

473
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 2: Look, yeah, and both are things that anarchists do. Both

474
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 2: are tiny portions of like like anarchists back in the

475
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: day would be like, I have killed a king who

476
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 2: had personally overseen three hundred of my friends shot in

477
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 2: the streets, which is why Katano Breshi went and killed

478
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 2: King Mberto too, one one of the amberdos.

479
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: You know.

480
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 2: It was like and so people are like this violent anarchists,

481
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 2: and you're like, the man who killed a king who

482
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 2: had just killed three hundred of this man's friends. Yeah,

483
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 2: that's where the violence is, is the anyway?

484
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: Whatever?

485
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, and then they are the anarchists

486
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 3: who are just filling in potholes because the city of

487
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 3: Portland doesn't feel like doing it.

488
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 2: When I think of the average anarchist activity, it is food,

489
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,360
Speaker 2: not bombs. That is the activity that I can say

490
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 2: more anarchists have done than anything else is give free

491
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 2: food to people who need food, which is, to be fair,

492
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 2: something the American government treats is incredibly dangerous, inexplicably, but

493
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 2: it's true. I was reading that in Houston they're having

494
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 2: trouble with the court cases against the food nut Bumbs

495
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 2: defendants because they can't find enough jurors who think that

496
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 2: arresting the food nut Bumbs people with made any sense.

497
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 3: Well that's exciting.

498
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the wto protests, some people wearing all blacks

499
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: through some bricks, through some windows of corporations that were

500
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 2: killing people in other countries. And plenty of current and

501
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 2: future elves were at these protests. Some of them met

502
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: in the streets and fell in love. A bunch of

503
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 2: them grew and sold weed to finance all the arson

504
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 2: So if you're wondering, the only thing I found about

505
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 2: how they financed the arsen Some of them were like

506
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 2: software engineers, and some of them were like growing and

507
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 2: selling weed. One activist who got involved around this time

508
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 2: was Daniel McGowan. He's one of the more famous elves

509
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 2: because a camera crew followed him as he awaited his trial.

510
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: So there's this documentary called If a Tree Falls from

511
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 2: twenty eleven that tells his life story. In the year

512
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 2: two thousand, they reached their peak. It seems like in

513
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 2: terms of membership and or actions, I count fifteen actions

514
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 2: by one list across the country. Only some of them,

515
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 2: maybe most of them were the family, but I'll run

516
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 2: through some of the other folks. At least some of

517
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 2: the other folks who were caught a lot of people

518
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 2: who did this stuff just were never caught. There's a

519
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 2: man named Trey Arrow. Did you ever hear about Trey

520
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 2: Arrow in Portland as a kid. No, let me talk

521
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 2: you about this local celebrity from twenty years ago.

522
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: It's our cool name.

523
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 2: Though I know he legally changed his name to Trey Arrow.

524
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 2: He chose it.

525
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: That's even cooler.

526
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: He chose it. And then like as he would get

527
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 2: in court, they would keep being like, whatever his old

528
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 2: name is, and he kept being like, I have already

529
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 2: done all the legal paperwork. My name is Trey Arrow.

530
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 2: Like the legal entity you're referring to is not on

531
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: trial anyway. East he was famous for three things, at

532
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 2: least famous in Portland. In July two thousand, there was

533
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 2: this protest downtown outside the US four Service office trying

534
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 2: to stop logging at a place called Eagle Creek, And

535
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 2: so Trey just free climbed the building with no ropes

536
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 2: or anything, on the spur of the moment, and then

537
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 2: lived for eleven days on a nine inch ledge on

538
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 2: the building. What.

539
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, the LEGE party is shocking to me. The climbing.

540
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, people do that sometimes. Why not have fun?

541
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 3: The LEGE is stressing me out?

542
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I think in the end people like got

543
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 2: him ropes and stuff, but I'm I actually don't. I

544
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 2: don't know, okay, that feel. But I moved it town

545
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 2: shortly after all this.

546
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well it's funny because in the end I

547
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 3: was yeah, oh, I was just gonna say it. Yeah,

548
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,239
Speaker 3: it's funny because I was born here and then we

549
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 3: lived in Honolulu and came back here in the summer

550
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 3: of two thousand and one, so there's this like five

551
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 3: year blank spot where I don't know, but it yeah,

552
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 3: I guess remember coming in like anyone cool was living

553
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 3: on a lege. I know that was how I got

554
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 3: out of my uh my, my, my, my service.

555
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 2: But no, you have this is just your all aspect.

556
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 3: For someone who wants to live on a lege. Yeah yeah, really,

557
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 3: I was sneaking back and I'm the one who rides

558
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 3: the containers back and forth across the Pacific. It's not

559
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 3: for sex trafficking victims. It's for people who need an alibi.

560
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so you you got out of

561
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 2: your service, but but other people didn't. And Eagle Creek

562
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 2: was saved not by him alone, but his actions did

563
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 2: draw fuck ton tent of attention to the cause like

564
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 2: every day's newspaper was like, is the hippie with no

565
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 2: shoes still on the ledge? Yes, he's still on the ledge.

566
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 4: Uh.

567
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 2: The next thing that he was famous for is that

568
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 2: cops dropped him out of a tree sit in October

569
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 2: two thousand and one. He was tree sitting. I've talked

570
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 2: to some people who knew him, and he wasn't up

571
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 2: there with like ropes. He was like, oh shit, this

572
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 2: tree needs saving. I'm running up this tree. And then

573
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 2: he's like jumping from tree to tree as people like

574
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 2: try and cut down these trees and stuff, and they

575
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 2: would like blast shitty music and stuff at him to

576
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 2: keep him from sleeping. And he fell sixty feet and

577
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 2: he survived. He broke his pelvis in his ribs.

578
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 3: Yeah God.

579
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 2: And then he became famous for a third thing that

580
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 2: wound up overshadowing the other ones. He and three other

581
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 2: people burned some logging trucks and claimed it for the

582
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 2: Earth Liberation Front. One of them got caught and snitched

583
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 2: out the other three. Two of those remaining three got

584
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 2: caught and then Trey Arrow I think was like a

585
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 2: broken pelvis, but I'm not sure the timeline here. He

586
00:32:58,200 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 2: fucked off up to Canada and lived on the right.

587
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 2: He was on the run for more than two years.

588
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 2: But then he I guess he just couldn't help himself.

589
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 2: He saw injustice and he had to do something. So

590
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 2: he got arrested in Canada while shoplifting bolt cutters. And look,

591
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 2: if you're on the run, gets someone else's shoplift your

592
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 2: bolt cutters.

593
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: I mean, and why didn't he already have bolt cutters?

594
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 2: I think you, I think you get rid of them

595
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 2: after each action. Ah, and then you can't buy them

596
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 2: because then there's a record of them havn't been bought.

597
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 2: But yeah, I know you think that this man is

598
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 2: just made of bolt cutters.

599
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: He he gives big bolt cutter energy. Yeah, totally, Like

600
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: come on.

601
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 2: And so he was arrested and he was eventually extradited.

602
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 2: There's a big fight. He was like, I'm not going

603
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 2: to get a fair trial in the US. What are

604
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 2: you talking about? And they were like, we're sending you

605
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 2: to the US for Canada. We don't give a shit.

606
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 2: And he spent a year in federal prison.

607
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 3: Oh god, which from what I understand, can be even

608
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 3: worse than the regular kind.

609
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 2: Another arson case was more Eugene tree Sitters, Critter, and

610
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 2: Free were their names. I don't think they legally changed

611
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 2: their names to these. And they burned some trucks at

612
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 2: an oil company and some SUVs at a dealership in

613
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:22,760
Speaker 2: the year two thousand, but cops were surveilling them already

614
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 2: and caught them right off. Critter got five and a

615
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 2: half years in prison. Free got for doing some damage

616
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 2: at a dealership, got twenty two years and eight months

617
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 2: in prison.

618
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 3: Oh my god.

619
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, this made almost no one happy. Like, people weren't like,

620
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 2: we love this punk anarchist kid who sets things on

621
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 2: fire that he doesn't like very p people were of

622
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 2: that point of view, and awful lot of people were

623
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,439
Speaker 2: of the point of view of like, twenty three years

624
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 2: in prison for this, you know. So there was an

625
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: eight year campaign and in two thou eight his sentence

626
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,320
Speaker 2: was reduced to ten years, and in December two thousand

627
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 2: and nine he was released. God there are more cases

628
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 2: like that, but that's just to give some sense of it.

629
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 2: The family was the biggest sell, but it wasn't the

630
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:11,879
Speaker 2: only one.

631
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 3: I feel like it's ridiculous to act like there's very

632
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 3: much rhyme or reason to overly harsh sentencing a lot

633
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 3: of the time. But is the idea that like, if

634
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 3: we crack down on suv dealership crimes, then we can

635
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 3: stop them from doing anything more impactful than that.

636
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,919
Speaker 2: I think, So like this is around, Well we're gonna

637
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the cases against them, but basically,

638
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 2: like the whole thing was the government was like, this

639
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 2: is the biggest deal in the country. Within a couple

640
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 2: of years, the FBI is going to say outright that

641
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:46,840
Speaker 2: the ALF and the ELF are the biggest domestic terrorist

642
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,959
Speaker 2: threat in the country. And this is like shortly after

643
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: nine to eleven. The not free. He was arrested before then,

644
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,760
Speaker 2: but like they come out and say, our biggest terror

645
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 2: domestic terror threat is the ELF. That's never heard anyone,

646
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 2: and like everyone who like lives in New York City

647
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:06,760
Speaker 2: is like, I just saw people jumping out of a building.

648
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 2: What are you trying to tell me is terrorism right now?

649
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 2: You know?

650
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 3: Yeah?

651
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 2: And there's actually there's actually some interviews with FBI agents.

652
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 2: There's one FBI agent who is a big part of

653
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 2: doing their case in particular, was on this podcast series

654
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 2: called burn Wild that the BBC did, and she talks

655
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 2: about how it was politically motivated. The sentencing and the

656
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 2: whole thing, just like how much attention was put into it,

657
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 2: And there's other people who are saying like, yeah, like

658
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 2: it was industry lobbying. Basically, infrastructure is the stuff that

659
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 2: is like we don't realize how much of a fence

660
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 2: they put around it, Like we don't realize how much

661
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: you're not, Like, I mean, we see it a lot

662
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 2: with what's happening right now with pipeline protests, right and

663
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 2: the the crazy sentencing that people are facing for civil

664
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 2: disobedience to try and stop fossil fuel infrastructure that is

665
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 2: literally killing us all. But the oil must flow is

666
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 2: like the foundation of the American state.

667
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently, which I as a little kid, you learn

668
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:24,399
Speaker 3: all this stuff that you're like, I guess grown ups,

669
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 3: no more complicated stuff, And then you grow up and

670
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 3: you're like, no, they don't. They just ignore it. Right,

671
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 3: there's a finite number of dead dinosaurs, but let's not worry.

672
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 2: About it totally. And that is what all of this

673
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 2: is around, is like people trying to grapple with whether

674
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 2: or not they're taking seriously. Like if we sit there

675
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 2: and say this is happening, global warming is real, what

676
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 2: can be done and this is not necessarily the answer. Like,

677
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I wanted this episode is to

678
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 2: talk about what did and didn't work, about what they did,

679
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 2: what they did and didn't accomplish, how it did and

680
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 2: didn't impact different things. But considering like, the thing that

681
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 2: we are up against is apathy slash like sticking your

682
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:13,720
Speaker 2: head in the sand. But the only way to save

683
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 2: the planet is to buy things from advertisers.

684
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: God, it's going to be something horrible. I just know it.

685
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: I just know it.

686
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope it's an ad for buying a new car.

687
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 2: Here you go, and we're back from cynically engaging in

688
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 2: the thing that pretty much everyone does, which is whatever.

689
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 2: In two thousand and one, the family hit two more

690
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 2: targets on the same night in two states, and then

691
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 2: they stopped. They called it quits, not because they got caught.

692
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 2: They quit because, as best as I can understand it,

693
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 2: they fucked up. They still never hurt anybody, not physically,

694
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 2: but they weren't all happy with what they had done.

695
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 2: On May twenty first, two thousand and one, the Elf

696
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 2: burned an office and thirteen trucks at a tree farm

697
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 2: in Oregon because they believed that that farm was growing

698
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 2: genetically engineered poplar trees. They were wrong. That had been

699
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:32,879
Speaker 2: the previous owners. The current owners used traditional methods. They

700
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 2: also burned down the office of a genetic engineering researcher

701
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 2: at the University of Washington. The fire spread and destroyed

702
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 2: an entire and unrelated research library. Burning libraries and terrorizing

703
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 2: random tree farmers was not on their agenda. Everyone is

704
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 2: a bit cagy about exactly how it went when they

705
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,359
Speaker 2: met up to talk, right, because everyone wants to only

706
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 2: say what they say and not what other people said,

707
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 2: because people have decent security culture.

708
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 1: Right.

709
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 2: But near as I can tell, the group was split.

710
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 2: Some folks wanted to keep going, maybe even escalate, and

711
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 2: other people threw in the towel and the group disbanded.

712
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,720
Speaker 2: In the end, about twenty people had done about forty

713
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 2: five million dollars in sabotage wow and destroyed the only

714
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 2: horse packing plant on at least the West Coast. Other

715
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 2: cells and individuals carried on for years across the country,

716
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 2: but the peak had passed before September eleventh, and before

717
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:41,280
Speaker 2: the crackdown against them. Pretty much the FBI didn't forget

718
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 2: about them their elephantine that way, they announced that the

719
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 2: ELF and the ALF were the number one domestic terrorist

720
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,239
Speaker 2: threat in the country. Terrorism. Of course, this is shortly

721
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven is the biggest boogeyman word in

722
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 2: the English language. Funding for anti terrorism is at an

723
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 2: all time high. So by labeling this terrorism, two things happened.

724
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 2: One they got a fuck ton more money, and two

725
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 2: they had to show results. And now you might think, oh,

726
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 2: I don't know, the far right movement that I just

727
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,399
Speaker 2: killed one hundred and sixty eight people in Oklahoma City

728
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five might be a place of direction

729
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 2: some energy, or the anti abortion extremists who were killing doctors. No, okay,

730
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:29,240
Speaker 2: well hear me out. Those are all Republican types I know. Okay,

731
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 2: but what about environmental arson like the nine thousand acres

732
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 2: of old growth that had just been burned. Nah, No,

733
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 2: it was aimed at the anarchist group that had never

734
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 2: heard anyone and had already stopped.

735
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 3: Well, I guess if you have to show results, it's

736
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,800
Speaker 3: ideal to pick people who aren't currently doing anything, because

737
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 3: then you can allege that you were the reason for that.

738
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 2: Totally God. The FEDS called this operation Operation Backfire. The

739
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: activist called it the Green Scare a period of heightened

740
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 2: and almost cartoonishly evil repression of environmental and animal rights

741
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 2: activists that absolutely filtered out to like those of us

742
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 2: in the above ground environmental movement.

743
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 3: You know.

744
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 2: For example, there's this alf guy, Animal Libration front guy.

745
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 2: He's an Indigenous man named Rod Coronado. He'd sunk some

746
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 2: whaling chips in the eighties. He'd fire bombed a ton

747
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 2: of shit and spent five years in prison in the

748
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 2: nineties for it. So he'd done it, you know, and

749
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 2: then he kept doing it. He sabotaged a lion hunt

750
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four and did eight months for it.

751
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 2: And in two thousand and three he was giving a talk.

752
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 2: Someone from the audience asked him how he'd built the

753
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 2: incendiary devices that he had used, that he had already

754
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,399
Speaker 2: been convicted of and served time for. Is the kind

755
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 2: of thing you're supposed to be able to talk about

756
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 2: once you've done the time, you're allowed to talk about

757
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 2: the crime. That's why it rhymes. He answered the question.

758
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 2: Three years later, in two thousand and six, during the

759
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 2: height of the Green Scare, he was arrested for having

760
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: answered a question from the audience. In two thousand and

761
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 2: three and he spent a year in prison for it. What,

762
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 2: which is why I'm not going to talk about how

763
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 2: they did any.

764
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 3: Of the shit they did.

765
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, God, later this man will spend four months in

766
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 2: prison because he accepted a friend request on Facebook from

767
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 2: Mike Rozell, one of the founders of Earth First.

768
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,320
Speaker 3: This would also be a great thing for people freaking

769
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 3: out about the First Amendment to focus on, but obviously

770
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 3: instead they're bothered by their nieces disliking their Facebook posts.

771
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 2: Right totally. One kid, Chris McIntosh did five thousand dollars

772
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,840
Speaker 2: of damage to McDonald's by like lighting the roof on fire,

773
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 2: and he was given eight years in prison for five

774
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 2: thousand dollars with a damage.

775
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 3: Well that McDonald's. You know, there are our culture's most

776
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 3: vulnerable subjects.

777
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 2: Di Irish they said, I hate crime, and then there's

778
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 2: this other group of people who are a story in

779
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 2: and of themselves that I'm not gonna The short version

780
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 2: is the FEDS put an infiltrator into the anarchist movement

781
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 2: who built up her own cell of the Elf. They

782
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 2: never did anything. She bullied them into making plans to

783
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 2: blow up a dam. Over the course of years, and

784
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: you can see in all of the transcripts that come

785
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 2: out because she's tapping everything right, She's like basically like,

786
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 2: come on, don't be a pussy, and everyone's like, we

787
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 2: actually don't want to do this, and she's like, you're

788
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 2: gonna do it. They're all arrested. One of them, Eric McDavid,

789
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 2: was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He had literally

790
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:48,280
Speaker 2: not done anything. After nine years in prison, his conviction

791
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 2: was overturned when it was revealed that the FBI had

792
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 2: withheld thousands of pages of evidence from the trial that

793
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 2: would have potentially been like, hey, this is clearly a

794
00:44:59,040 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 2: frame up. You know.

795
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 3: I do not claim to have a nuanced understanding of this,

796
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 3: but the way conspiracy chargers work in this country feels

797
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 3: very counter toed sort of the basic facts of human nature,

798
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 3: which is how a lot of our law operates, you know,

799
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 3: but the right because like the basics are that, like

800
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,799
Speaker 3: from the second that a criminal conspiracy becomes like from

801
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 3: the second you become implicitly part of it. Like if

802
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,759
Speaker 3: I'm in a room, if you and me and Sophie

803
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 3: are like, let's j walk, yeah, yeah, if so, if

804
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 3: Sophie's like, I want to make a run for it

805
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 3: to cross the street, and.

806
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: I am from Los Angeles.

807
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 3: Well I'm thinking of like that's.

808
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, I'm from lah.

809
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:41,839
Speaker 4: Yeah.

810
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: That sounds like.

811
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 3: Right, It's like it's it's fine. Yeah, But like say

812
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 3: that we go on a on a road trip with

813
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 3: our scariest friend who starts talking about, you know, a

814
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 3: plan to rob a bank, and we're doing the thing

815
00:45:57,080 --> 00:46:00,399
Speaker 3: that human beings do where you like don't necess really

816
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 3: take something seriously, or you look out for yourself and

817
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 3: are like, maybe you're going to do that, but I'm

818
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,280
Speaker 3: not going to be a part of that, or maybe

819
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 3: this will blow over. I don't know, but we don't

820
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 3: affirmatively remove ourselves from the potential conspiracy. And then if

821
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 3: they rob a bank all by themselves, then we can

822
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 3: be co conspirators in that, you know.

823
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even if you take legal actions that would

824
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 2: be otherwise legal in furtherance of that, Like if I

825
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 2: was like, h hey, wouldn't it be cool if we

826
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 2: reached up into vending machines and took the soda out,

827
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:41,800
Speaker 2: you know, and then like later you become a vending

828
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 2: machine repair person and you look up a schematic, you know,

829
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 2: you can, you can combine two acts of free speech

830
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 2: and create a conspiracy. Not a lawyer, but I have

831
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:56,839
Speaker 2: done a lot of research about this particular thing for

832
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 2: some reason, Like I was around during the goddamn Green Scare.

833
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, right, And and that's probably a more

834
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 3: a better working understanding of the law than you could

835
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 3: get in a lot of law schools. Yeah, it's actually

836
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:12,879
Speaker 3: news you can use.

837
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 2: Yeah totally. But yeah, so this had happened to Eric McDavid.

838
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 2: Eventually his conviction is overturned and he's released after what

839
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 2: nine years in prison and all of that started happening. Well,

840
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 2: actually the infiltrator joined in two thousand and three, but

841
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 2: the two thousand and six is the arrest, which is

842
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 2: after the family case is cracked. But just to paint

843
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 2: a picture of the Green Scare, the family, though, is

844
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:46,320
Speaker 2: who the Feds really really wanted. They had no idea

845
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 2: how to find them, they had no evidence, and they

846
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 2: started out with about a dozen agents on the case

847
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 2: and is ramped up to three hundred agents working on

848
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 2: this case. People were refusing to testify in front of

849
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 2: grand jury and spending months in jailer as a result.

850
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: Someday I'm going to cover grand juries on this and

851
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 2: it'll be one of the most infuriating episodes. In two

852
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 2: thousand and one, in March, a punk show in Portland

853
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 2: was raided and the attendees were arrested and questioned about

854
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 2: the elf. Some of them were like charged initially with

855
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:22,319
Speaker 2: kidnapping an officer because of like I think they tried

856
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: to keep the cop out, or someone closed the door

857
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 2: after the cop came in, or like some fucking nonsense.

858
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 2: That case fell apart.

859
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 3: Cops can't open doors. Everyone knows that.

860
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 2: No, they need help.

861
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 3: They're very fragile.

862
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 2: Punks in Portland in two thousand and one were being

863
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 2: harassed in some case attacked by cops while walking around

864
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 2: the street. Cops would be like, are you an anarchist

865
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 2: from like their patrol cars, and then like Jesus, sometimes

866
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 2: jump them. But the Feds had nothing. Nothing was going

867
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 2: to happen unless one of the arsonists snitched. One of

868
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 2: them snitches. It was Donut the bad Boy. The Feds

869
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:07,240
Speaker 2: had a suspicion he was involved, and he'd been arrested

870
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 2: for car theft on one of the nights of one

871
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 2: of the arsons that wasn't him, Like one of the

872
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 2: I think one of the arsons that Free and Critter

873
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:20,240
Speaker 2: had done. And so they brought in Jake, mister Donut himself,

874
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 2: and they lied to him. Cops and feds lie, it

875
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 2: is literally their job. It is probable that the arsonists

876
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 2: would have been caught if everyone had remembered that cops

877
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 2: are lying to you if they're talking. They listed off

878
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 2: all this stuff they had evidence against him about, like

879
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 2: the car theft and drugs and stuff he did hard drugs,

880
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 2: and then at the end they were like, and the arsons,

881
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 2: you will spend the rest of your life in prison

882
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 2: if you don't tell us about the arsens, which we

883
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 2: totally already know about, and you have to wear a

884
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 2: wire and go around to all your old friends and

885
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 2: get them to confess to.

886
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 3: It.

887
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 2: Took him twenty minutes to decide, and he gave in.

888
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 3: I think there's something very statistic about, you know, a

889
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 3: country where you know, the FBI sort of law enforcement agencies. Generally,

890
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 3: the culture and or cult of masculinity that we have

891
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 3: is so obsessed with solidarity and not betraying your buddies,

892
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 3: and then when you know, when they've decided to marginalize

893
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 3: a group of people, as less than a human. The

894
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 3: first thing they do is, you know, basically make it

895
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 3: impossible for people to not betray each other's trust. No,

896
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 3: that's a something quite evil about it. Yeah, and they're

897
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:42,360
Speaker 3: like proud of it.

898
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 2: In a tree falls, you can watch one of the

899
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:46,799
Speaker 2: FEDS who is involved in this. He has a shit

900
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 2: eating grin on his face as he's talking about what

901
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 2: he did. He thinks he is so clever, and he

902
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 2: was like he succeeded, right, But it's yeah, it's just

903
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 2: so interesting to me that like pretty big into honesty

904
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 2: as like an ethical concern, because I think that everyone

905
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 2: needs to be able to make decisions with the best

906
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 2: available information. And we have completely accepted not just that

907
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 2: police use violence obviously that is a contentious issue, but

908
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 2: how much it is a crime to lie to cops

909
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:18,359
Speaker 2: and it is not a crime for cops to lie

910
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 2: to you, and that's just like normal and accepted that

911
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 2: the state is constantly lying to us like it's his job.

912
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and that is the kind of thing

913
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 3: that if you accept that as part of a functioning society,

914
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 3: then you can accept a lot of other things. You know,

915
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 3: totally none of it good. Yeah, So they put a

916
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:47,760
Speaker 3: wire in his baseball cap, and they send them around

917
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:50,439
Speaker 3: the country to talk to old friends, and he gets

918
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 3: them to talk about the crimes. He's less like, hey man,

919
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 3: what do you think we did on the night of

920
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 3: you know, blah blah blah nineteen ninety seven. He's like, oh, man,

921
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 3: I got a hangover almost as bad as the night

922
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:07,760
Speaker 3: the morning after the night of July seventh, nineteen ninety seven.

923
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 2: What were we doing in that night? Yeah, what were

924
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 2: we doing? Instead he did it kind of like he

925
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:17,399
Speaker 2: was like he would just get people to say things like, hey,

926
00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 2: stop worrying. They don't have any DNA connecting us to anything.

927
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 2: The only way that we'll go down is if someone talks.

928
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 2: So he gets them to confess. But not like I

929
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 2: carried the jug up that hill or whatever the fuck

930
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 2: I mean. I haven't read all the transcripts. I've read

931
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:36,359
Speaker 2: like bits of them, but that's what I pulled out

932
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:40,839
Speaker 2: of it. M On December seventh, two thousand and five,

933
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 2: six of them were arrested across the country all at once.

934
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 2: It soon was thirteen indictments, six women and seven men.

935
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 2: A bunch of people fled avalon the supposed leader. He

936
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 2: was arrested. He was also the first to get out

937
00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 2: of prison because on December twenty first, the solstice, he

938
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 2: wrote a note and then put a plastic bag over

939
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: his head, and his note read to my friends and

940
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 2: supporters to help them make sense of all these events

941
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 2: that have happened so quickly. Certain human cultures have been

942
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 2: waging war against the Earth for millennia. I chose to

943
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:20,839
Speaker 2: fight on the side of bears, mountain lions, skunks, bats, cigarros,

944
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 2: cliff rose, and all things wild. I am just the

945
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 2: most recent casualty in that war. But tonight I have

946
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 2: made a jail break. I am returning home to the Earth,

947
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 2: to the place of my origins. Bill twelve, twenty one

948
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 2: oh five, the Winter Solstice. I almost did that without crying.

949
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 2: Of the ten initial defendants, six took cooperating plea deals.

950
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 2: They snitched each other out. Four of them did not.

951
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:58,319
Speaker 2: Nathaniel Block, Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, and Johanna Zacher all

952
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 2: refused to cooperate, or rather, they took non cooperating plea deals.

953
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 2: They didn't take it to court. They said, yes, I

954
00:54:04,840 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 2: did it, and I will tell you everything that I did,

955
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 2: and I will not tell you anything that anyone else did.

956
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:15,359
Speaker 2: And here's the thing about cops line. The ones who

957
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 2: turned on each other for later sentences did not receive

958
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 2: later sentences. There is an excellent analysis in a proper

959
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 2: spreadsheet form available from the publisher Crime Think, in an

960
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 2: essay called Green Scared that's worth checking out, and just

961
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 2: google Green Scared Crime Think and you'll get it. The

962
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:37,319
Speaker 2: non cooperating defendants got an average of almost seven years

963
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 2: in prison. The cooperating defendants got an average of seven

964
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 2: and a half years and they had to do those

965
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 2: years in prison without the support of the movement that

966
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 2: they had sold out. In essence, they sold their souls,

967
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:57,640
Speaker 2: but not for pennies, but for checks that bounced. Suzanne Savoy,

968
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:01,759
Speaker 2: one of the cooperators, later told a doctor documentary team,

969
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 2: I never in my life thought I'd be cooperating with

970
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 2: the FBI. I always thought I would be able to

971
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 2: stay strong and stay true to my values and beliefs.

972
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 2: But I guess sometimes you aren't as strong as you think.

973
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:15,360
Speaker 2: And I say these things because I'm not trying to

974
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 2: point a finger at her and be like, see she's weak,

975
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 2: she sucks, Like am I right? Rather, she's right when

976
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:24,640
Speaker 2: she says that when no one knows what they would

977
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 2: do in that situation. It's the classic George Orwell, rats

978
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 2: in a cage on your face situation. And that's why

979
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 2: it's worth pointing out cops are lying. The deal they

980
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:40,160
Speaker 2: are offering you is not the deal they are offering you.

981
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 2: They'll say they'll take the rats in the cage off

982
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:46,439
Speaker 2: your face if you just talk. They don't. The thing

983
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:48,799
Speaker 2: that gets the rats in the cage off of your

984
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 2: face is movement support, prison support and movement lawyers, the

985
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:56,960
Speaker 2: kinds of people who don't tend to work with people

986
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 2: who have cooperated with an investigation. Daniel McGowan was sent

987
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 2: to a special terrorist prison, a communications Management unit or CMU,

988
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 2: and he was He was convicted of being like a

989
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:14,560
Speaker 2: lookout twice. That was his big thing, you know. So

990
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:18,359
Speaker 2: he sent a special terrorist prison and in special terror

991
00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 2: prison you get one fifteen minute call per week and

992
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 2: you get one visit per month behind class. Later he

993
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 2: got out and he was in a halfway house and

994
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 2: he wrote an article for the Huffington Post about CMU's

995
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:35,600
Speaker 2: about contact communications management units, and he was arrested for it.

996
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:40,319
Speaker 2: Political pressure got him released the next day later. In

997
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, Justin Salons was arrested in China

998
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 2: for making hash out of wild marijuana. He was like,

999
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:50,120
Speaker 2: on a family trip to Italy and he was like, shit,

1000
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back to the States where doesn't

1001
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 2: like the US, And so he went to China. But

1002
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:58,400
Speaker 2: you know, a boy's got to eat. So he was

1003
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:03,240
Speaker 2: making hash and wild marijuana and selling it. He spent

1004
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 2: two years in Chinese prison before he was extradited to

1005
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:08,919
Speaker 2: the US and then he served the sentence.

1006
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 3: Better than making hash out of wild horses.

1007
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Rebecca Rubin self surrendered in twenty

1008
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 2: twelve from where she'd fled to in Canada. Both took

1009
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 2: plea deals, but neither informed on anyone. Both took that

1010
00:57:26,120 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 2: non cooperating and I'll tell you what I did. And

1011
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 2: then Joseph Dibby, he's the most recent arrestee. He's actually

1012
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 2: out again too. Though he told his father what he

1013
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 2: was facing, right, He was like that I think him

1014
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: in trouble, and his father was like, well, it's time

1015
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,400
Speaker 2: to go home. So he went to Syria, which had

1016
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 2: no extradition treaty to the US, and in order to

1017
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 2: get out, he fucking mission impossible, this shit. He gave

1018
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 2: his cell phone to someone to drive to Canada with,

1019
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 2: and he like got in another cart. I think he

1020
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 2: had more than one car as a software engineer. And

1021
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 2: he got in another car and then like took off

1022
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:08,240
Speaker 2: and I think like had to like lose a tail

1023
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 2: by like driving. He says, he was like, look, I

1024
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 2: was a piece of delivery driver. I know how to drive,

1025
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 2: you know. He like loses a tail and gets himself

1026
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 2: to Mexico and I think crosses on foot into Mexico,

1027
00:58:20,520 --> 00:58:25,640
Speaker 2: and ugh. He boards a plane to Syria. He lives

1028
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:28,040
Speaker 2: in Syria and he's doing all this environmental engineering work.

1029
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 2: He does amazing work and like biodiesel and this all

1030
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:37,240
Speaker 2: this stuff right, and then the Syrian Civil War breaks

1031
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:39,439
Speaker 2: out and he's like, this is not safe. I will

1032
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:41,520
Speaker 2: die if I stay here, and so he goes to

1033
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:44,720
Speaker 2: Russia to wait out the war. But the war in

1034
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 2: Syria keeps not ending. In Russia, he did environmental work.

1035
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 2: He wound up married, but then at one point he

1036
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 2: leaves the country. He like flies to South America for

1037
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:56,440
Speaker 2: business I think, to help like a worker cooperative of

1038
00:58:56,480 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 2: some kind. And then on the way back through Cuba,

1039
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 2: flying back to Russia in twenty eighteen, biometrics pick him

1040
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 2: up and the Cuban authorities arrest him, oh God, torture

1041
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 2: him just like almost kill him from dehydration, and then

1042
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 2: hand him over to the US, where while he was

1043
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 2: in jail, a white supremacist broke his jaw and permanently

1044
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 2: disfigured him. In the end, Joseph he wound up sentenced

1045
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 2: to time served in November twenty twenty two, and he

1046
00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 2: never informed on anybody, and he the judge's speech about

1047
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 2: it is actually really interesting and it's kind of like, hey,

1048
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:45,280
Speaker 2: like fire is not the solution, but mass incarceration is

1049
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 2: pretty bad. And also you're doing all this like work

1050
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 2: where like he was developing these carbon capturing KELP buoys

1051
00:59:53,160 --> 01:00:00,840
Speaker 2: in coordination within indigenous communities in Alaska. He's a fucking

1052
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 2: cool guy as far as I can tell him.

1053
01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 4: Never met him.

1054
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 2: And there's one woman, Josephine's Sunshine Overacre, who is still

1055
01:00:08,560 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 2: on the run the fedes of no clue where she is.

1056
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 2: Her mother once helped host fugitives in Canada, men who

1057
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 2: are escaping the draft from the US, and her mother

1058
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 2: is proud of her or wherever she is. Jake mister

1059
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 2: Donut didn't do any time for the arsons. Instead, in

1060
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:30,560
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, he was arrested for possession and manufacture of

1061
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 2: heroin and sentenced for five years. And I haven't mentioned

1062
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 2: all of the non family prisoners, but there's one ELF

1063
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 2: prisoner that I'm aware of who's still in jail in

1064
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 2: the United States, and he's a trans man named Marius Mason.

1065
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,960
Speaker 2: He was I believe the first person to transition in

1066
01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 2: federal custody, or at least the first man to transition

1067
01:00:48,840 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 2: in federal custody. He was arrested for arsons in Michigan

1068
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 2: when his husband, with whom he'd done those arsons, snitched

1069
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 2: him out. She was married to this man named Frank Ambrose,

1070
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:01,560
Speaker 2: who was caught disposed evidence in a dumpster and he

1071
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:05,800
Speaker 2: rolled right away on his spouse. There's an active support

1072
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 2: campaign for Marius that's worth checking out. Long term prisoners

1073
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 2: are often forgotten, and they should not be. Most of

1074
01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 2: his support comes from the anarchist community, which makes sense,

1075
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 2: but I would argue, at the end of the day,

1076
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 2: all of us live on planet Earth and it is

1077
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 2: getting hotter, and there's an awful lot of people who've

1078
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 2: tried to address that in whatever ways.

1079
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:24,560
Speaker 3: They know how.

1080
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 2: A lot of people have given up everything in the

1081
01:01:28,040 --> 01:01:30,560
Speaker 2: fight for the earth, and they deserve our support, whether

1082
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 2: or not we specifically think that their tactics are what

1083
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:42,520
Speaker 2: should be emulated. But I would argue, right now, no

1084
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:46,120
Speaker 2: one knows what the fuck will work. Yeah, that's my

1085
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 2: rousing conclusion.

1086
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 3: I feel like if we knew, we would be doing it. Yeah,

1087
01:01:51,680 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 3: this is like a very random citation, but you know

1088
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 3: how things get stuck in your head, especially if you

1089
01:01:57,520 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 3: encounter them around her before the age like twenty one. Yeah,

1090
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:05,920
Speaker 3: there's the movie The Constant Gardner. Okay, it has a

1091
01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 3: dedication I know, has a dedication in the credits, which

1092
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 3: you know has been long enough that I forget who

1093
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:16,640
Speaker 3: this is about or why, although I once knew, But

1094
01:02:17,040 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 3: it goes for a Vett Peter Powley, who lived and

1095
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:23,080
Speaker 3: died giving a damn, And that like has stuck in

1096
01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:25,320
Speaker 3: my brain, is like the idea of like living and

1097
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 3: dying giving a damn, and that you know, if we're

1098
01:02:28,640 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 3: talking about activism of whatever kind, it's always about or

1099
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:36,160
Speaker 3: it should always be about giving a damn, And that

1100
01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:40,040
Speaker 3: it feels like you know, whatever that means to you

1101
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 3: that we are currently in some kind of ideological war

1102
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 3: between giving a damn and not yeah, which is maybe

1103
01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 3: overly simplistic but feels true to me.

1104
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 2: No, because I think we're it's sometimes we want to

1105
01:02:54,440 --> 01:03:00,200
Speaker 2: not give a damn, partly because we don't know. There's

1106
01:03:00,240 --> 01:03:03,160
Speaker 2: the things that we think might work but are dangerous,

1107
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:06,160
Speaker 2: and then there's the things. But then on some level

1108
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:09,400
Speaker 2: we're also like, we just don't know, we don't know

1109
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:09,880
Speaker 2: what will work.

1110
01:03:10,280 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 4: You know.

1111
01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 2: There is one way of looking at these folks is

1112
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 2: like the only reason it didn't work is that it

1113
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:19,560
Speaker 2: didn't keep going. There's another way of looking at it

1114
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:25,240
Speaker 2: as saying this disrupted and broke up a growing radical

1115
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 2: environmental movement, you know, or a grassroots environmental movement like

1116
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:31,520
Speaker 2: what happened with Veil. But on the other hand, you

1117
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 2: could also it just it galaxy brains up and up

1118
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:39,120
Speaker 2: and up and keeps flipping back and forth, and you know,

1119
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 2: because you're like, oh, well, it disrupted the environmental movement

1120
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:46,040
Speaker 2: in Veil, and then you're like, well, yeah, but that

1121
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 2: movement didn't succeed. It had already lost and the cutting

1122
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:52,240
Speaker 2: had started. And then you're like, yeah, but this didn't

1123
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 2: succeed either, you know. And the thing that is a

1124
01:03:56,640 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 2: no brainer for me is not playing into the division

1125
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 2: between above ground and underground movements. The people who deserve

1126
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:10,320
Speaker 2: the blame for environmental destruction are the people who are

1127
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 2: destroying the planet, not people who are fighting against that destruction,

1128
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 2: even though some of those people are fighting against it

1129
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:19,919
Speaker 2: in ways that we don't approve of. And that goes

1130
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 2: in all directions. You know, that's the part that I

1131
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:27,880
Speaker 2: feel clear on. But I absolutely, I mean one, never

1132
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:31,520
Speaker 2: get your advice about strategy from fucking talking head in

1133
01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 2: your ears. I'm very aware of how parasocial, Like, of

1134
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 2: all of the I have avoided talking about shit that's

1135
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:41,959
Speaker 2: happened in the past twenty or thirty years. I usually

1136
01:04:42,000 --> 01:04:43,800
Speaker 2: talk about things that happened a long time ago. And

1137
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 2: one of the reasons is that I don't want people

1138
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,040
Speaker 2: to think that they listen to a podcast and know

1139
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:52,560
Speaker 2: what to do, you know, yeah, oh yeah. But I

1140
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 2: chose to do this episode because I think that it

1141
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:58,200
Speaker 2: is the kind of thing that is like, it's worth

1142
01:04:58,240 --> 01:05:03,480
Speaker 2: people thinking about what is necessary to try and address

1143
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 2: the problems we're facing.

1144
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 3: But I don't know, yeah, or or you know, or

1145
01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:09,600
Speaker 3: to question the assumptions we have about what does and

1146
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:14,480
Speaker 3: doesn't work, because yeah, you know, I think that the

1147
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 3: time has passed for looking for a single answer because

1148
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:19,960
Speaker 3: we don't have a single problem totally.

1149
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:23,080
Speaker 2: And I mean, in some ways it's also just how

1150
01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:26,200
Speaker 2: do we want to live? How do we what was

1151
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:29,000
Speaker 2: the constant gardener living and acting like you give a

1152
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:29,919
Speaker 2: damn yeah?

1153
01:05:30,080 --> 01:05:32,160
Speaker 3: Live, living and dying giving a damn yeah.

1154
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 2: And I think overall, the slow hard work of day

1155
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:41,400
Speaker 2: in and day out movement building and the slow hard

1156
01:05:41,440 --> 01:05:46,320
Speaker 2: work of I think that overall, that is what I choose,

1157
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 2: and I just I want to not choose to condemn

1158
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 2: people who pick differently as long as people are living

1159
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 2: and dying like they give a damn, they get it wrong.

1160
01:05:56,720 --> 01:06:00,880
Speaker 3: Right, And that's you know, I mean, that's the thing

1161
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 3: that if we fall into the sort of FBI versus

1162
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:10,919
Speaker 3: activists quote unquote legal versus quote unquote illegal mindset, then

1163
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 3: suddenly it becomes respectability versus caring totally.

1164
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:22,280
Speaker 2: And then yet, like you know, people like no one's

1165
01:06:23,280 --> 01:06:27,440
Speaker 2: no one's an angel in these stories, you know, like

1166
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 2: people are doing things like don't burn libraries down, you know, yeah,

1167
01:06:34,360 --> 01:06:37,000
Speaker 2: they knew it too, but they knew it too late.

1168
01:06:37,640 --> 01:06:40,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. And yet, you know, you compare

1169
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:42,880
Speaker 3: that to somebody like the Weathermen, who I feel like

1170
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 3: blew up quite a few people, and it's like, you know,

1171
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 3: that's intentionality is still very important.

1172
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:51,840
Speaker 2: I think the Weathermen only ended up blowing up themselves.

1173
01:06:53,040 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 3: Okay, see, I'm just my history here is very casual.

1174
01:06:57,880 --> 01:07:00,240
Speaker 3: I'm sure you're right. I know you're right.

1175
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:03,160
Speaker 2: I'm only eighty percent on this, but I believe that

1176
01:07:03,200 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 2: the only I get.

1177
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 3: My history from Forrest Gump.

1178
01:07:05,960 --> 01:07:08,960
Speaker 2: So yeah, now, I'm like, this is the kind of

1179
01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 2: thing I, of all people, should know off the top

1180
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:11,360
Speaker 2: of my head.

1181
01:07:11,880 --> 01:07:17,440
Speaker 3: But but it's it's definitely there's more all over your

1182
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:18,080
Speaker 3: head than in my.

1183
01:07:19,560 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 2: But they certainly were less directly caring about Like the

1184
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:28,320
Speaker 2: social movement that they came out of had far less

1185
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 2: of a problem with armed violence than the social movement

1186
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 2: that their celebration front came out of. But it's also like,

1187
01:07:39,360 --> 01:07:42,400
Speaker 2: I don't know, I could talk about this all day. Yeah,

1188
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:47,400
Speaker 2: what is dead we should talk about? Is you wrong about?

1189
01:07:47,920 --> 01:07:48,000
Speaker 1: What?

1190
01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 2: A segue? Thanks?

1191
01:07:51,120 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're wrong about I hope is sometimes about cool

1192
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 3: people and sometimes about people who tried, and sometimes about

1193
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:02,320
Speaker 3: people who you just don't know what they were thinking,

1194
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:06,560
Speaker 3: but they had to have been thinking something, and so

1195
01:08:06,600 --> 01:08:09,280
Speaker 3: I'm like in an overly philosophical frame, So I'm like,

1196
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 3: what is your wrong about? But yeah, I do a

1197
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:18,160
Speaker 3: podcast calls You're wrong about. It's a show where I

1198
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 3: have rotating guests where every couple weeks somebody comes on

1199
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:26,840
Speaker 3: and tells me about a chapter in history that is

1200
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:32,920
Speaker 3: commonly misunderstood, or I tell them about a chapter in

1201
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 3: history that is commonly misunderstood and that I have stayed

1202
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:40,320
Speaker 3: up late too many nights thinking about. And it is

1203
01:08:40,479 --> 01:08:42,800
Speaker 3: very preoccupied with the question of how do we live

1204
01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:45,760
Speaker 3: and die? Giving a damn? And I feel like my

1205
01:08:45,880 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 3: answer is that, or one of my answers is that

1206
01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:52,559
Speaker 3: we study history because the questions were trying to answer

1207
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 3: now are the same questions often that have bothered people

1208
01:08:56,280 --> 01:08:58,360
Speaker 3: for as long as we have a written record of

1209
01:08:58,360 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 3: people being bothered by questions. And one of the other

1210
01:09:02,960 --> 01:09:07,680
Speaker 3: themes is that you don't have to be smart to

1211
01:09:07,800 --> 01:09:10,720
Speaker 3: deserve a nice life, which is a thing that we

1212
01:09:10,800 --> 01:09:14,040
Speaker 3: don't realize we believe in America until you argue against it.

1213
01:09:14,120 --> 01:09:16,160
Speaker 3: I think, and then I have a show called You

1214
01:09:16,200 --> 01:09:21,240
Speaker 3: Are Good, where we talk about movies and the feelings

1215
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:23,439
Speaker 3: they give us and how we learn how to define

1216
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:28,120
Speaker 3: ourselves by watching whatever we could find on VHS or

1217
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:32,080
Speaker 3: on a random streaming service, and how we shape ourselves

1218
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:35,400
Speaker 3: with little bits of culture like a hermit crab. Those

1219
01:09:35,439 --> 01:09:36,360
Speaker 3: are my shows.

1220
01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:39,800
Speaker 2: I love that concept and I think about that all

1221
01:09:39,840 --> 01:09:42,760
Speaker 2: the time, about the way that we see who we

1222
01:09:42,800 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 2: can be based on the heroes that we see in

1223
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:52,559
Speaker 2: media and how they define us and how we become

1224
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:55,400
Speaker 2: them as we age. And yeah, that's cool.

1225
01:09:56,640 --> 01:09:58,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I feel like you know, there is

1226
01:09:58,760 --> 01:10:02,519
Speaker 3: it's nerve wracking to make media and want people to

1227
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:05,679
Speaker 3: hear what you're saying and also not put too much

1228
01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:09,720
Speaker 3: stock in it and to find, you know, answer their

1229
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:14,559
Speaker 3: own questions and not act like any one person talking

1230
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:18,200
Speaker 3: in their ear has the answers. But yeah, yeah, you're

1231
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:22,799
Speaker 3: making that media that can help people find the people

1232
01:10:22,880 --> 01:10:25,559
Speaker 3: that they can model themselves after on the show. So

1233
01:10:25,600 --> 01:10:28,000
Speaker 3: it's so nice to come visit and be a part

1234
01:10:28,000 --> 01:10:28,720
Speaker 3: of it a little bit.

1235
01:10:29,880 --> 01:10:31,880
Speaker 2: Well, you should listen to the person whispering in your

1236
01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:35,519
Speaker 2: ear when she tells you to go listen to Well,

1237
01:10:35,560 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 2: if you like this, podcast. You'll like Sarah's podcasts, and

1238
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:47,680
Speaker 2: you should also give all of your money to our animals,

1239
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:52,920
Speaker 2: not animals as like a general concept, but specifically the

1240
01:10:52,960 --> 01:10:54,400
Speaker 2: three of us, just our pets.

1241
01:10:56,720 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 3: I've been influenced by this YouTuber who's giving like chicken

1242
01:11:00,439 --> 01:11:03,599
Speaker 3: hearts and freeze dried muscles to her cat, and I

1243
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:06,960
Speaker 3: really feel like my cats have probably been suffering in

1244
01:11:07,000 --> 01:11:10,080
Speaker 3: silence on their mediocre diet. So yeah, it's very true.

1245
01:11:10,240 --> 01:11:12,000
Speaker 3: It's an issue facing our country.

1246
01:11:12,479 --> 01:11:15,360
Speaker 2: My dog eats the fanciest kibble that's still kibble that

1247
01:11:15,400 --> 01:11:17,000
Speaker 2: I can still buy in the town I live in,

1248
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 2: and is really picky about it, and it's like, really

1249
01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:26,680
Speaker 2: the fancy kibble again. And I told the vet that

1250
01:11:27,080 --> 01:11:30,280
Speaker 2: he doesn't like his food all that much, and she's like,

1251
01:11:30,280 --> 01:11:32,320
Speaker 2: what do you give him? And I was like the

1252
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:34,800
Speaker 2: following that I'm not being paid to advertise, I'm not

1253
01:11:34,800 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 2: going to say. And she's like, but that's the good stuff,

1254
01:11:37,360 --> 01:11:39,360
Speaker 2: and I was like, I know, I can't even get

1255
01:11:39,400 --> 01:11:41,000
Speaker 2: it at the grocery store. I have to go to

1256
01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:43,880
Speaker 2: tractor supply. I've probably told this story on this podcast before,

1257
01:11:44,520 --> 01:11:46,280
Speaker 2: but I think about it all the time because I

1258
01:11:46,280 --> 01:11:49,000
Speaker 2: feed him every day. And every day is like maybe

1259
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:50,000
Speaker 2: later when I'm hungry.

1260
01:11:51,280 --> 01:11:53,840
Speaker 1: So funny, but if.

1261
01:11:53,720 --> 01:11:56,920
Speaker 2: You want to hear me write about my life, and

1262
01:11:57,160 --> 01:12:00,960
Speaker 2: I actually, for example, I did a substack post a

1263
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:04,360
Speaker 2: couple weeks ago as you are looking for this, called

1264
01:12:04,400 --> 01:12:06,160
Speaker 2: how can we Stare at the Sun or how to

1265
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:09,439
Speaker 2: confront the Unimaginable? And it's about, you know, it's the

1266
01:12:09,439 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 2: stuff that I try not I try to keep it

1267
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:15,000
Speaker 2: mostly like history focused when I talk about this, whereas

1268
01:12:15,160 --> 01:12:18,639
Speaker 2: this is an essay where I talk more about how

1269
01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:21,680
Speaker 2: do we look at mourning the death of winter and

1270
01:12:21,720 --> 01:12:23,680
Speaker 2: how do we look at what actions we feel are

1271
01:12:23,720 --> 01:12:26,120
Speaker 2: appropriate to take? So you can check that out on

1272
01:12:26,160 --> 01:12:28,280
Speaker 2: my substack that's free. Half of my posts are free.

1273
01:12:28,360 --> 01:12:29,920
Speaker 2: The other half you have to give me food with

1274
01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:31,800
Speaker 2: which to buy dog food for my dog, and those

1275
01:12:31,800 --> 01:12:34,000
Speaker 2: are the ones that are more personal. And then I'll

1276
01:12:34,040 --> 01:12:37,240
Speaker 2: also say you should listen to Hood Politics with prop

1277
01:12:37,479 --> 01:12:40,800
Speaker 2: which is on cool Zone Media and is one of

1278
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:45,679
Speaker 2: my favorite news shows because cool Zone Media doesn't miss

1279
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:47,600
Speaker 2: and they don't pay me to say that. Well, I

1280
01:12:47,600 --> 01:12:49,920
Speaker 2: guess they on some level pay me because I am

1281
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:52,559
Speaker 2: hired by cool Zone Media, but I just actually genuinely

1282
01:12:53,439 --> 01:12:55,439
Speaker 2: like the shows that we produce and I'm proud to

1283
01:12:55,439 --> 01:12:56,680
Speaker 2: be part of it. So if you guys think to

1284
01:12:56,720 --> 01:12:58,200
Speaker 2: plug that.

1285
01:12:59,200 --> 01:13:02,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, that time's too perfect.

1286
01:13:02,360 --> 01:13:05,200
Speaker 2: We'll see you next Monday. Bye, Ronye.

1287
01:13:10,439 --> 01:13:12,920
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1288
01:13:13,000 --> 01:13:16,080
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,

1289
01:13:16,240 --> 01:13:19,479
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

1290
01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:22,960
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1291
01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:24,280
Speaker 1: your podcasts.