WEBVTT - Part Two: The Earth Liberation Front: The Burning Rage of a Dying Planet 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.720 Whole Zone Media. 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:09.000 Hello, and welcome to Cool People did Cool Stuff show 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:14.040 that comes through your headphones while you're walking the dog. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.759 I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today is 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.920 Sarah Marshall. Hy Sarah, Hello, I'm. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.400 So happy to be here, especially as someone who grew 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.400 up as a tween ignorant about all of this but 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:31.760 wanting to find an excuse to live in a tree 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:32.760 for over a year. 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.200 Earthworce would have been the better group than the Earth 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.320 Liberation Front the thing that you can live in for 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.640 a year, as the Earth Liberation Front of solitary confined. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:46.440 Oh god, I our producer, you're getting straight in it's 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.400 me Hy Sophie. Sophie. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.120 Sophie's kind of a big deal around here. 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.280 That was really that was really funny. 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.400 Funny list than the audience listeners. 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:58.440 I won't know why it's really funny, but just know 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:00.160 it's really funny. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:06.039 Yeah, And that's what's fun is having inside jokes that. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.120 Oh wait, the whole point of a podcast doesn't make 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.320 the listener think that they're part of the end whatever. No, 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.480 the point of the podcast is education and entertainment and 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.840 helping us do that is our audio engineer danel Hi 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.800 danel Hi, dannelh. Danel Our theme music was written for 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:24.160 Spyon Women and this is part two in a two 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:28.120 part are about the Earth Liberation Front, a group, a 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.760 leaderless group that did an awful lot of damage to 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:37.000 Earth destroyers that was very contentious at the time. It's 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.120 probably very contentious still. But it's kind of interesting to 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.880 watch the way that mainstream media talks about it these days, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:49.680 because it's a little like, well, maybe we're all about 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.600 to die and we should do this, you know, Like 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.080 even like mainstream media's was just a little bit like, 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.880 this is probably not the right way to go about it. 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.559 I'm running out of my is like that's they could 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.120 see the facade crack. I don't know, I'm grinning while 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.040 I say this, maybe because it's. 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.040 Kind of funny. Yeah, I mean, the question of who 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.839 gets called an extremist in American media is very interesting, 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.280 right because it's clearly all about what kind of an 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.480 extremist you are, and they're like certain extremists who were 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:23.320 in favor. 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.680 Right now yeah, no, totally, And there's like all this 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.120 the FEDS who are currently leading and I'm completely ill 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.880 to get to that at the end all right, where 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:39.760 we last left our heroes, they were being hippies tagging 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:45.200 we don't like America on rest stops. They were tagging 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.000 five hundred and four years of genocide around Columbus Day, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:50.240 and then burned down a truck, and so they hadn't 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:56.880 really done much yet, but they were starting to. The 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.960 fires at the Ranger Station were started by people from Warner, 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.440 and soon they expanded into the largest and most prolific 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.320 cell of the ELF in the US and possibly the world. 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.560 But I'm not entirely certain about that, and I've seen 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.960 an awful lot of narratives about exactly who did this, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.000 or rather who was behind it. On some level, we 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.840 like kind of know, right because almost everyone involved has 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.920 pled guilty, But some of them have basically said I 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.239 pled guilty to some shit I did and some shit 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.720 I didn't do, because they're like, hm, I was going 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:32.280 to go to prison for the rest of my life 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.480 unless I said I did it, including things that I 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.360 didn't do. And that's a whole separate thing about the 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:42.880 way that the judicial system makes people lie. But in 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.400 the end, there are almost twenty people arrested in connection 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.960 to this particular cell of the Earth Liberation Front most 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.040 about ten years later, and every narrative picks a different 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.440 sort of like ring leader or whoever to blame, partly 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.280 because they're all like, who's the leader, who he was 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.480 in charge? Because people can't wrap their fucking head around anarchists. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.160 It's hilarious. The narrative I find most convincing is that 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.920 this cell started from late night talks at Warner Creek 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:13.600 and about what was happening to the planet and what 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:15.800 needed to be done. That's the one I've been going with. 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.240 But I've heard a lot of narratives around this, And 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.920 in that narrative, there's this punk guy, Jacob Ferguson. Sometimes 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.719 he's called the leader. He was. Certainly it's undoing, so 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.520 if that's how we define leader, we can go to that. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:31.880 But generally. 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.719 He was a quiet man and sort of a bad boy. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:38.800 He did drugs and he played punk rock, and he 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.400 was angry, and he had like a lip ring and 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.360 septim ring and stuff. Imagine a bad kid, white kid 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.120 from a rough background in the nineteen nineties, and you 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.599 have successfully pictured Jacob Ferguson. 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.919 All right, yeah, I see him. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.560 Yeah, And supposedly it all started when basic. It was like, 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:02.880 y'all talk a lot of shit, but are we gonna 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.840 do anything? And his nickname was a donut. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:13.000 Why I don't know, because cops can always find him. 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:21.640 Yeah, it should have been a sign to everyone all along. 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:24.280 Oh no. 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.720 And then there was this older hippie anarchist. His name 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.680 was William Rogers, also known as Avalon. I think his 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.200 name is face, yeah, right. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.120 Like because it was his favorite Brian Faerie song Avalon. 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.640 I actually don't know that reference. But Avalon is a 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.960 mythical island lost in the fog. Sometimes uses like a 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.799 shorthand for the old ways, for the pagan world before 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.600 Rome civilized England and start all the fucking nonsense we're 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:56.440 dealing with today. And I I like it. I don't know, 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.279 because I'm a sucker for mythology and magic and shit, 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.000 and I'm really good at blaming everything on England. But 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.119 I'm going to go a step further and blame everything 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:07.160 on the Roman Empire. 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:08.360 Fair enough. 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.279 Just look at him, I know, look at them. Avalon 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.920 was a venerable old man. He was thirty years old 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.960 in nineteen ninety five. All the media is always like 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.159 the old guy who led it, because he's the one 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.360 who gets pegged as the leader of everything because he's 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.080 older than everyone. He was thirty years old in nineteen 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.560 ninety five when Warner Creek started. He'd already been involved 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.440 in Earth First for a few years. He'd been living 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.280 out of his truck, going from protest to protest to organize, 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.159 and at one point he lived in a snow cave 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.280 with three other people in Idaho as part of an 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.000 Earth First encampment shortly before Warner Creek. So he was 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.479 one of the more experienced people who showed up to 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.400 Warner Creek. He gets called the mastermind of the whole 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.520 thing by the government. It's possible. We don't know. And 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.120 one reason we don't know is because everyone well, cause 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.719 there's assatual limitations on terrorism, and even the people who've 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.560 confessed are a little tight LittD about some shit. But 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:11.360 after his arrest, Avalon kills himself in jail, and so 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.400 we don't know his position on a lot of things. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:21.040 The government, they're pretty old fashioned, and I've seen the 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.440 oldest white male be assumed to be the leader before. 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.440 It Just you know, there's a group of people, you're like, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:27.280 who's in charge? 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.160 And you just like I was gonna say, it's like 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:34.680 when you're at dinner and people get like, give give 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.480 the oldest man there the check, when it's when it's me, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:39.920 the tiny blonde person. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.440 Yeah, absolutely don't. 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:45.160 They don't even like look at the name on the 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.040 credit card. They just they just automatically assume it's like 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:50.600 the eldest white man there. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.720 Yeah, like hello, mister Sophie. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:55.760 I like that. 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.880 And in this case, it's kind of interesting because like, 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.920 if I die, don't do that. You can blame anything 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.000 that I would consider ethical on me. You can just 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.720 like whether or not I did it. Like I have 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:15.080 a friend who once got convicted of like doing all 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.000 of the black block destruction at this protest that probably 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.440 like thirty people where I'm making this number up. I 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.480 wasn't there, but probably it would have taken a lot 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.720 of people to do that much damage. And one one 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.360 person got convicted of all of it, and he's just like, yeah, sure, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.079 totally I did all of it. I'll take I'll take 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.080 the social capital. I already did the jail time, you know. 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:43.760 Christ Yeah, anyway, avalon the government, you know, decides this, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.400 probably him, but I don't know. However, the cell started. 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.800 It started. They burned up a truck at a ranger 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.600 station because they didn't like the forest services complicity and 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.559 old growth logging, and that was their first fiery thing. Right. 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:04.480 Soon enough, this group gets called the family, and there 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.040 are almost no references to the actual people in this 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.600 cell referring to it as the family. This is what 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.200 the Feds and the media refer to it as it is. 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.600 It's possible that they occasionally call themselves the family, but 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.200 like in all the discovery, there's not a lot of that. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.960 And do you think that's because the media knows that 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.680 something sounds more sinister if you call it by something 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.000 that in the recent past has been preceded by the 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:30.880 word manson. 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.440 Yes, I genuinely think that that is what's going on. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.080 There's this whole thing later where some of the defendants 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.959 like are just being edge lords and start playing into 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:48.600 that when they're like already in prison. But whatever. So 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.719 they are the most successful cell, their liberation front, and 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.560 their security culture is top notch. They took their shit 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.000 serious across dozens of fires and actions. There wasn't a 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.560 single bit of DNA evidence that was ever brought back. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.120 They wore socks over their shoes to disguise their footprints. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.800 They wipe down everything for their fingerprints. In order to 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.240 assemble what they needed. They'd build these clean rooms like 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.120 they'd rent a hotel room and then put a tent 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.560 inside the hotel room, and then put on painter suits 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:23.720 and then go into the tent. 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:24.800 Wow. 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.360 They took their work very seriously. Someone probably avalon the 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:30.800 government alleges as much. And I see no reason why 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.560 to let anyone else take the credit or blame for 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:38.360 this rode. A zine called It's very evocative title setting 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:43.760 fires with electrical timers, which I. 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.319 Love because that could also be like somebody's MFA the 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:54.400 asso say uva yeah totally, and like movement, yeah totally. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.880 And so this zne was a modern dance masterpiece, and 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.040 it talked about some dance moves that I am one 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.120 hundred percent not going to talk about on air, and 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.959 that I have avoided even reading the zine. The zine 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.080 came out and suddenly it was harder for the government 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.800 to map out which cells did which action because they 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.400 all used the same technology. They also didn't all know 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.000 each other, or they didn't see each other very much. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:25.600 Most of them dropped out of the movement to avoid 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.600 putting anyone else at risk and avoid drawing attention to themselves, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.600 and it was a lonely life. They passed notes to 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.640 each other by all getting the same book and then 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.560 like building ciphers that are like open the dispossessed and 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.440 turned a page blah blah blah, line number word, blah 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:41.199 blah blah. 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:42.160 You know. Wow. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:47.000 Yeah, they were early adopters of encrypted email. They used PGP, 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.440 but more than that, they would leave notes for each 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.080 other in the drafts folder of a shared email address 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.679 that they would log into only at public libraries. 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.360 This is real, like mission impossible type stuff. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.080 Oh. Absolutely, they're one of these people who was on 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.240 the run for twelve years has like some wild shit. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.880 We're going to get to one of them at least 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.360 lived in Canada the entire time, and we just sneak 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.680 across the border for actions and then sneak back home, 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.520 which is probably a good like alibi. I wasn't even 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.679 in the country. It is a pretty strong. 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:21.400 Yeah. 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.720 In all their actions, no one was killed or harmed. 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.320 They went through elaborate efforts to make sure of that. 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.240 And on Beltane nineteen ninety seven, pretty early on They 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.040 released their sort of inaugural communicae, and I'm going to 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.640 read it. Welcome to the struggle of all species to 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.480 be free. We are the burning rage of this dying planet. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.800 The war of greed ravages the earth, and species die out. 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.400 Every day. ELF works to speed up the collapse of industry, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.960 to scare the rich, and to undermine the foundations of 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.120 the state. We embrace social and deep ecology as a 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.440 practical resistance movement. We have to show the enemy that 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.960 we are serious about defending is sacred. Together, we have 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.480 teeth and claws to match our dreams. Our greatest weapons 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:09.000 are imagination and the ability to strike when least expected. 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.960 Since nineteen ninety two, a series of Earth Nights and 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.439 Halloween smashes as mushroomed around the world. Thousands of bulldozers, 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.679 power lines, computer systems, buildings and valuable equipment have been composted. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.720 Many ELF actions have been censored to prevent our bravery 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.760 from inciting others to take action. We take inspiration from 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:34.280 the Luddites, levelers, diggers, the autonom squatter movement, the alf, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.680 the Zapatistas, and the little people. Those mischievous elves of 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.640 lore authorities can't see us because they don't believe in elves. 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:48.280 We are practically invisible. We have no command structure, no spokespersons, 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.520 no office, just many small groups working separately, seeking vulnerable 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.440 targets and practicing our craft. Many elves are moving to 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.000 the Pacific Northwest in other sacred areas. Some elves will 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.720 surprises as they go. Find your family, and let's dance 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.720 as we make ruins of the corporate money system. 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.000 What I love about that is how it, you know, 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.360 brings in the legacy of you know, the we folk 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.280 and the fairies of. 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:18.200 Avalon. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:23.480 I guess really where we have this, you know, contemporary 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:28.400 idea of fairies is like very cute and feminine, and 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.160 I guess, you know tinker Bell is part of some 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:37.960 kind of heredity because she'll kill a bitch. But that really, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:43.040 like the legacy of the magical creatures that folklore told 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.400 of was that they were part of nature and if 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.040 you turned your back on them at the wrong moment, 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:53.200 they could destroy if they felt like it, and that 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.840 that was part of their mischief. And I don't know, 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.640 I love that. I mean, I feel like the earth 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:06.200 needs protectors, but sort of showing where you are in 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.360 the legacy of that not that not that the goal 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:13.040 is to convince the people who are trying to arrest 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.120 you of the righteousness of what you're doing. But it's 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.720 it's it's convincing. It's literature. I think, you. 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:25.200 Know, it's really well written. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. I 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.480 really actually when you're saying, how like, you know, fairies 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.560 in such a scene as like feminine? Now right, but 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.920 one of the really the more I read medieval history, 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.520 the more I realize that the feminine was terrifying to 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.520 the medieval year of mind. It was the feminine claims 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:46.360 a lot wildness. It was unpredictability and violence, and like 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:48.560 you know, it was cool. 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:50.480 Yeah. 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.720 And the other thing I love about this is they 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:57.040 specifically say we have no command structure. The FEDS spend 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.200 They're still trying to wrap their head around who is 0:15:59.240 --> 0:15:59.800 in charge. 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:01.400 Augh, I love it. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.840 In nineteen ninety seven, the ELF moved on to not 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.880 what they're most famous for, but what they're best at, 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.000 the thing that you can point and say they accomplish 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:19.920 their strategic goals. Here, the Elf saved horses. You see, 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.200 thank god. Yeah, there are these wild horses living all 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.680 over the US. Especially out west in Nevada and Wyoming 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.320 in particular, and kind of like eastern California, like all 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.400 the high, dryish parts of the country that are kind 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:39.440 of flat. And I've read eighty two thousand horses currently. 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.000 I've read two hundred thousand horses currently, probably the answers 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.320 in between those I don't know. And this population of 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.160 horses is under management of the Bureau of Land Management, 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.440 which is not my favorite governmental institution. Their population is 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.080 managed by them being rounded up and theoretically adopted out 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.440 to loving homes, right, because there's only so many wild 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.040 horses that can live in the planes and stuff, right, 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.320 so they you know, the nice version of the story, 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.240 the version of the story that's like, oh, they plant 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.679 six trees for everyone they cut down, is that they 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.600 round up these horses, the extra ones, and they adopt 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:21.440 they find adoptees, and they you know, the government's like, oh, 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.359 we make them do all this paperwork. We show up 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.480 like three times before they can resell, like you know, 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.000 ah blah blah blah. 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:28.680 They go to a nice farm up state. 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:33.520 Yeah, that's what was actually happening, according to an awful 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.920 lot of journalism, but not according to the BLM. What 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.359 was happening was that they were basically being adopted and 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:44.240 then turn around and sold to slaughterhouses. Yeah, mostly they 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.800 were being sold to one slaughterhouse because there was more 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.480 or less only one operating in the US at the time. 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:55.560 It was called Cavel West. Horse meat is not served 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.600 in the US Traditionally, it is outright banned and a 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:04.199 ton of states. This didn't stop slaughterhouses from slaughtering horses 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.600 and selling the meat internationally. Even though there was no 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:11.280 national you couldn't sell the meat nationally. Eventually, this was 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.399 officially stopped in two thousand and seven. It wasn't actually 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.239 technically banned, but what happened was all the slaughterhouses had 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.880 to be inspected, and the government didn't put money aside 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:24.040 to inspect the hot orse slaughter houses, so it was 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:24.960 effectively banned. 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:25.840 That's interesting. 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.080 So what happens now is that tens of thousands of 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.960 horses that are exported alive to slaughterhouses in other countries. 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.919 But oh okay, so wait are like are French people 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.800 eating wild caught American horses? Not to pin it all 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:41.960 on the French. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.600 But American horse meat is often considered a delicacy in 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:47.560 countries that eat horses. 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.480 It feels kind of wrong when it happens to us. 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.720 I mean, it's fine for Americans to plunder other countries 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.600 because that's a natural order. 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:58.199 Go to war against France. 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.600 Let they know that all the things put in American foods, 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.360 I don't think. I don't think you want. I can't 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.520 even imagine what's an American horse food. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.080 Yeah, the wild cut, that's the thing. 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:11.680 Yeah. 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:19.320 Yeah, they've gorged themselves on soda cans and. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.080 And all the things we put in our soil that 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:20.800 we're not supposed to put it in our soil. 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.919 And you know what, they don't gorge themselves on because 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.840 all of these things are carefully constrained and don't litter. 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.840 All of them are totally an Yeah. But I'm also 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.240 lying because we have no knowledge of whether or not 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.600 they're environmentally sustainable. The things that we're about to. 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:59.240 Talk about, no idea, but here they are anyway. 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.520 And we're back. So overall, the US shares the English 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:58.119 language country taboo on horse meat. However you feel about 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.320 horse meat, it's still fucked up that people are opting 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.600 these horses just to sell them to slaughter houses. Yeah, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.879 and if you're only judge for moralities. Legality, Well, it's 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:11.000 also not legal to do so. The FBI put together 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.480 a team of three hundred agents working around the clock 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:15.240 to get to the bottom of the corruption within the 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.040 BLM and their complicity and the illegal horse slaughter programs. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.359 Just kidding. In the end, they put three hundred agents 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.440 together to arrest the people who stopped the illegal horse 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.920 slaughter program, the Earth Liberation Front. They decided to address 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.160 this problem directly. On July twenty first, nineteen ninety seven, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.280 the elves went to Redmond, Oregon, to the only West 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.520 Coast horse slaughterhouse I've also read the only one in 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.800 the country, I'm not certain, and they burned it to 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:47.280 the ground. No horses or people were injured in the process. 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:53.800 This slaughterhouse was never rebuilt. On November twenty ninth, nineteen 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.600 ninety seven, elves led about five hundred horses and fifty burrows, 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.080 which were donkeys for US East Coast people let them 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.960 free at a BLM wild Horse Corral and Oregon in 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.959 the fittingly named town of Burns, Oregon, and then they 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:11.920 burned that corral to the ground. A Syrian American software 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.439 engineer named Joseph Dibbi designed and planned the incendiary that 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:19.760 destroyed the wildhorse slaughterhouse, and later in two thousand and one, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.760 he would burn another BLM wildhorse facility or he only 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.040 did the one, and he's one of the people who 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:27.600 later pled guilty that says that he did some of 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:31.560 the things that he pled guilty to. And yeah, across 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.760 the West, the ELF set wild horses free in direct 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.600 response to the slaughterhouse pipeline. I've read a few different 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.960 accounts that claim that these actions forced the national conversation 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.159 on the issue and led to the two thousand and 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.720 seven ban. That might be true, but I also know 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.600 that they specifically and directly saved thousands of wild horses 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.120 lives and stopped the only place that people were selling 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:58.800 their wild horses to illegally. And then then they did 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.800 the thing that got them famous. Yes, if you've ever 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.159 thought about the Earth Liberation Front a radical environmentalists, and 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:09.240 you picture a picture of building on fire, there is 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.960 a photo from Veil that is the picture that you're 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:16.160 thinking of. They burned down a huge chunk of veil, 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.840 the busiest ski resort in the country. Oh wow, Yeah, 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:24.880 without hurting anyone that's impressive. Yeah, this is their big one. 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.680 This is their biggest is twelve million dollars fire. Most 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.640 of their fires willow half a million million. 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:31.879 Yeah. 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.479 In nineteen ninety eight, Veil was set to expand eight 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:38.000 hundred or two thousand acres. I've read both into Lynx habitat, 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.520 and there was this huge movement against it all the 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.760 like grassroots local people like getting together to be like, hey, 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.320 don't you think your ski resort's big enough and maybe 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:52.520 the links and the natural world get a little bit 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.760