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Speaker 1: Rip Current is a production of iHeart podcasts. The views

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Speaker 1: and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host,

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Speaker 1: producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it vised.

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Speaker 2: Judy Berry's background was in labor organizing. She had done

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Speaker 2: it back East when she was college aged, and it

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Speaker 2: was her entree into political action. Up in Kotopia, she

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Speaker 2: thought there was an opportunity to unionize timber workers. She

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Speaker 2: believed that environmentalists and timber workers had similar interests in

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Speaker 2: preserving the redwood forest from being overcut by the large

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Speaker 2: timber companies. Environmentalists wanted to preserve the unique ecosystem. Timber workers,

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Speaker 2: she felt, should want these companies to use sustainable cutting

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Speaker 2: strategies so that the industry would remain healthy in the future.

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Speaker 2: The new overcutting strategy would defeat both of these goals,

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Speaker 2: but it wasn't that simple.

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Speaker 3: There's two categories of workers in the timber industry.

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Speaker 2: This is Mark Scaramella, the managing editor of the Anderson

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Speaker 2: Valley Advertiser, an eccentric weekly newspaper out of Boonville in

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Speaker 2: Mendocino County.

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Speaker 3: And you have the forest workers, the loggers and laggers

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Speaker 3: by larger family operations. They're the typo loggers, they're contractors

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Speaker 3: who did the work for the timber companies. They're family operations,

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Speaker 3: and you're not going to organize family operations. That's just

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Speaker 3: an inherently hard task. They're not susceptible to standard union tactics.

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Speaker 2: An added barrier was that these family operations competed against

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Speaker 2: each other for contracts with the mills. It was not

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Speaker 2: a situation that would easily create allies.

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Speaker 3: A lot of the mills did have unions, but they

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Speaker 3: intended to be to these corporate unions. They were just

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Speaker 3: needed to make sure the corporation was sustained so their

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Speaker 3: jobs would be sustained, and that's all understandable, and they

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Speaker 3: wanted better wages and working editions and so forth. But

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Speaker 3: they were not anti timber industry. Certainly were not environmentalists.

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Speaker 3: But the meal workers that I knew who had interest

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Speaker 3: in the environmental activity were also cut off by the

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Speaker 3: hippie thing.

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Speaker 2: Mark is talking about the counterculture aesthetic that characterize Earth

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Speaker 2: First and Ecotopia.

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Speaker 3: I mean, they were working class people and they'd go

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Speaker 3: to an organizing meeting now and then and show up

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Speaker 3: and there was all this hippie wu stuff that went

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Speaker 3: on and turn me off as well as them. Like

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Speaker 3: I said, almost a cult, and it was off putting,

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Speaker 3: and so you didn't get very many meal workers. Occasionally

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Speaker 3: they would agree with the environmentalists, but they wouldn't participate

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Speaker 3: in any effective way, and that was unfortunate.

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Speaker 2: Journalist Mike Janella.

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Speaker 4: By now the big corporate companies were shutting down mills,

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Speaker 4: accelerating the cut. So she understood, go to the communities

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Speaker 4: where these workers live and talk to them. They are

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Speaker 4: the ones who lost their jobs. They're the ones who

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Speaker 4: are out there cutting like hell before they lost their jobs.

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Speaker 2: She began talking to people where they lived and where

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Speaker 2: they worked. It was something that by all accounts, she

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Speaker 2: was very good at. She had a unique and genuine manner.

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Speaker 2: This is musician and writer Larry Livermore.

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Speaker 5: She was very charismatic. She was the kind of she

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Speaker 5: would just say things off the top of her head.

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Speaker 5: There was a certain element of adventurism, and you know,

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Speaker 5: they unjustifies the means. But I did see that element

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Speaker 5: of her that she was basically at least thir up

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Speaker 5: some shit. You could see where she could accomplish a lot,

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Speaker 5: but you never knew when she might go too far.

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Speaker 6: You have to understand that her whole life was politics,

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Speaker 6: and she always liked to push things to the extreme.

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Speaker 6: I'm Steve Talbot and I'm a journalist and filmmaker. I

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Speaker 6: would have conversations with her, and she told many others

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Speaker 6: that she imagined herself as a wobbley, you know, from

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Speaker 6: the industrial workers of the world back in the beginning

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Speaker 6: of the twentieth century, and that she was going to

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Speaker 6: go in and organize the workers of her era into

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Speaker 6: a group like the IWW.

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Speaker 4: What's your name, Sam Scotlett, what's your religion? The IWW

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Speaker 4: that ain't no religion, the only one I got.

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Speaker 7: Are you a citizen?

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Speaker 4: No?

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Speaker 8: I am an industrial worker of the world.

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Speaker 6: Now, she met a few people, and she got a

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Speaker 6: few loggers to be interested in what she was saying,

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Speaker 6: to take an anti corporate stance, a pro worker stance.

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Speaker 6: It was more of a dream than a reality, and

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Speaker 6: this outreach.

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Speaker 2: Could involve putting herself in tense and potentially dangerous situations

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Speaker 2: as she spoke to people who might very well be

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Speaker 2: inclined to dislike her. It me adventuring to very remote

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Speaker 2: sites where the timber cutters, in particular worked. This could

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Speaker 2: lead to tense discussions. Here, Judy, accompanied by a small

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Speaker 2: group of supporters, meets on a dirt road with about

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Speaker 2: a half dozen stone faced laggers. One is holding a

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Speaker 2: sign that says timber industry replants the forest, not earth First.

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Speaker 2: This is Judy speaking to those laggers. She's wearing a

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Speaker 2: camouflage baseball cap and an Earth First T shirt with

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Speaker 2: the sleeves cut off. She is physically dwarfed by the men.

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Speaker 9: Let's you know, keep in mind what's going on here.

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Speaker 9: When that band comes out here, try to liquidate their

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Speaker 9: r growth to finance their jump on. I'm sorry that

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Speaker 9: said doesn't make it an That's why are here.

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Speaker 10: We're not here because of the loggers.

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Speaker 9: We're here because the trial her with some flime bitter

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Speaker 9: from Pegnant never gan redwood in his life.

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Speaker 3: They for million dollars a year.

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Speaker 9: That is ten times what the average new work who

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Speaker 9: were making on lighte coming.

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Speaker 4: Some people want to suggest that she made this coalition.

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Speaker 4: I'm still unclear how affective the coalition was, but there

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Speaker 4: is no doubt that she reached out to timberfallers communities

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Speaker 4: and then start badgering local political figures to do something

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Speaker 4: the first environmental leader to go to the source.

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Speaker 3: Judy had this fantasy of organizing mill workers and loggers,

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Speaker 3: and it was a fantasy. There was inherent splits in

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Speaker 3: the whole approach which made that basically impossible, but it

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Speaker 3: was worth a try. I never disagreed with the try,

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Speaker 3: but I don't think their tactics were the kind that

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Speaker 3: would work.

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Speaker 2: Her allies in Earth First felt that her labor organizing

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Speaker 2: efforts were more effective. This is Darryl Turney talking with

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Speaker 2: West Brain on the radio show Brain Labor Report in

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Speaker 2: twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 10: What made you unique was her labor background had her

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Speaker 10: reaching out to the timber industry to build bridges, to

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Speaker 10: say that Earth First was opposed to corporations and the overlogging,

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Speaker 10: not to simply the use of wood and this sustainable

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Speaker 10: use of wood. And she was organizing actual unions under

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Speaker 10: the Industrial Workers of the World.

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Speaker 2: The International Workers of the World, as Steve Talbot mentioned,

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Speaker 2: is a radical one hundred and twenty year old union

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Speaker 2: that was created with the idea of organizing all workers,

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Speaker 2: skilled and unskilled, racially integrated into one big union. Its

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Speaker 2: heyday was at the beginning of the twentieth century, though

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Speaker 2: it is still active today.

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Speaker 10: The ISWW course is founded in nineteen oh five by

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Speaker 10: Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and other noted

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Speaker 10: labor radicals and really fine activists of their day. In

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Speaker 10: a sense, Earth First as an environmental movement was predicated

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Speaker 10: all the principles of the ISWW, only applying them to

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Speaker 10: environmental organizing. And so you know, it had a lot

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Speaker 10: of sense of humor, a lot of music, a lot

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Speaker 10: of radical activities and going where nobody had gone before.

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Speaker 2: Really, this effort to form common cause with timber workers

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Speaker 2: sat uneasily next to the direct action that Earth First

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Speaker 2: was also engaged in. While this was targeted at the corporations,

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Speaker 2: in practice there was no way to avoid butting up

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Speaker 2: against the workers. It was a very delicate balancing act.

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Speaker 2: I'm Toby Ball and this is rip current Episode five

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Speaker 2: Spotted Owl Week. In nineteen seventy three, a University of

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Speaker 2: Tennessee biologist named David Etnir was snorkeling the Little Tennessee

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Speaker 2: River surveying the fish population when he discovered the snail darter.

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Speaker 2: The snail darter was a tiny fish that had never

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Speaker 2: before been seen. Its only habitat it was believed was

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Speaker 2: the Little Tennessee River. In nineteen seventy five, the snail

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Speaker 2: darter was listed as an endangered species. This was important

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Speaker 2: because the Little Tennessee River was about to disappear. Construction

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Speaker 2: on the Teleco Dam had begun in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 2: and its completion would turn the river into the Teleco Reservoir.

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Speaker 2: The University of Tennessee Law School sued the Tennessee Valley Authority,

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Speaker 2: who were building the dam, under the Endangered Species Act.

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Speaker 2: The suit argued that completing the dam would cause the

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Speaker 2: previously unknown snail darter to become extinct. The suit didn't

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Speaker 2: stop the construction of the dam. Construction was delayed for

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Speaker 2: about two years and completed in nineteen seventy nine. But

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Speaker 2: a new tactic had been employed, using the Endangered Species

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Speaker 2: Act to try to save wilderness areas. Snail darters, by

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Speaker 2: the way, were transplanted to other rivers, and their population

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Speaker 2: grew to the point where they are no longer endangered.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine, environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest followed

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Speaker 2: this strategy by arguing that the population of the northern

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Speaker 2: spotted owl, which lives in the Redwood forest had diminished

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Speaker 2: to around fifteen hundred pairs. If the US Fish and

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Speaker 2: Wildlife Commission decided to designate the owls as endangered or threatened,

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Speaker 2: it would cut the amount of timber harvesting allowed on

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Speaker 2: public lands by roughly one half. The timber industry argued

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Speaker 2: that the effect of listing the owls as threatened would

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Speaker 2: cost jobs and destroy the local economy. The lines were

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Speaker 2: drawn as part of the deliberation process over the owl's designation.

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Speaker 2: The US Fish and Wildlife Commission scheduled four public hearings

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Speaker 2: to take place in the Pacific Northwest during the week

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Speaker 2: of August thirteenth to twentieth, nineteen eighty nine. It was

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Speaker 2: a week when the eyes of the national media would

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Speaker 2: be on Ecotopia, and Earth First planned a series of

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Speaker 2: actions to garner attention. It was a week when tempers

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Speaker 2: ran high and violence followed. Monday, August fourteenth, Around five

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Speaker 2: am on the morning of August fourteenth, three women ascended

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Speaker 2: redwood trees on a remote ridge seven miles outside of

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Speaker 2: the coastal town of Fort Bragg. A group of more

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Speaker 2: than a dozen people had worked through the night to

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Speaker 2: set up in the trees. The three three foot by

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Speaker 2: five foot platforms more than fifty feet above the ground.

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Speaker 2: The women had trained for this action, which was planned

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Speaker 2: to last for a week. One of the women, Pamela McManus,

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Speaker 2: told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, that she'd extended her

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Speaker 2: vacation in order to participate. The trees were on the

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Speaker 2: property of the corporate timber giant, Georgia Pacific. That morning,

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Speaker 2: their people showed up at the site. This is how Carlstad,

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Speaker 2: a radical activist, talking about that morning as he introduced

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Speaker 2: Judy Barry, who's giving a talk on Earth Day nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety three. He had helped set up the platforms in

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Speaker 2: the night.

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Speaker 8: Came back the next morning and they were up in

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Speaker 8: the tree set and the George Pacific people came in

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Speaker 8: and said, you people are truspassing, aren't you, And said

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Speaker 8: we know that. In fact, there's three people in the

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Speaker 8: tree and they're trustpassing two. And the George Pacific heads

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Speaker 8: timber worker or the one that was managing the forest.

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Speaker 8: He says, I said, this looks awful, that clear cut

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Speaker 8: over there. He says, this is a good one. I said,

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Speaker 8: what's a bad?

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Speaker 4: Look like?

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Speaker 8: This is a good one. And he says we come

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Speaker 8: in and we cut everything down, and then we waited

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Speaker 8: to the fall, and then we came over with the

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Speaker 8: blowtorches and whatever was left, we burned everything down to

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Speaker 8: the ground. Everything.

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Speaker 2: It was an encapsulation of the practices that had brought

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Speaker 2: the protesters there in the first place. Complete clear cut.

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Speaker 2: This tree sat accomplished its most important goal. It got

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Speaker 2: public attention. The next day, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat

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Speaker 2: ran an article by reporter Pat McKay about the three

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Speaker 2: tree sitters on the front page. McKay reported that the

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Speaker 2: Georgia Pacific employees did not seem to be too concerned

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Speaker 2: about the tree sitters.

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Speaker 7: A spokesman said, we told them it was private property

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Speaker 7: and that's about it. We're not going to try to

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Speaker 7: pull anybody out.

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Speaker 3: Of a tree.

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Speaker 2: He also expressed amazement that the logistics needed to set

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Speaker 2: up the platform. As for a comment about the tree sat,

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Speaker 2: Judy Barry focused on Georgia Pacific's cutting of young trees.

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Speaker 11: This is a slaughter of babies.

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Speaker 2: It was a kind of rhetoric that she would sometimes

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Speaker 2: use in the years to come. She would answerpomorphize the

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Speaker 2: trees and use incendiary metaphors to make her points. Also

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Speaker 2: on Monday, a dozen earth Firsters climbed on a one

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty year old English walnut tree during lunchtime

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Speaker 2: at the home of an assemblyman named Dan Hauser. Howzard

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Speaker 2: earned the attention of earth First for his opposition to

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Speaker 2: legislation protecting old growth forests. The action ended peacefully with

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Speaker 2: no arrests. This was the beginning of a week of

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Speaker 2: earth First actions in Ecotopia. Other earth First cells and

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Speaker 2: other environmental groups also planned events for this week to

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Speaker 2: coincide with federal hearings being conducted on a recommendation from

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Speaker 2: the Fish and Wildlife Service to ban logging in large

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Speaker 2: parts of the Redwood Forest to preserve the habitat of

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Speaker 2: the endangered spotted owl. As the week went on, tempers

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Speaker 2: ramped up and Judy and other earth Firsters would be

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Speaker 2: confronted with violent resistance to their efforts. The next incident

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Speaker 2: would occur two days later, and it was violent Wednesday,

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Speaker 2: August sixteenth. The original plan for this earth First action

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Speaker 2: was to set up another tree set, but that was

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Speaker 2: scrapped and Judy, Daryl, and about twenty other supporters barricaded

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Speaker 2: a road in the remote, unincorporated town of Whitehorn. The

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Speaker 2: road was used primarily by a small logging business run

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Speaker 2: by the Lancaster family. This is how carlstat again he

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Speaker 2: was with the group in Whitehorn that day.

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Speaker 8: But then in the middle of the week Darryl Cherney

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Speaker 8: and Judy said there was going to be a little

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Speaker 8: action over at Whitethorn and it might be a little

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Speaker 8: bit rough. And I said, oh, I like that. So

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Speaker 8: I went over to Whitethorn and there was a family

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Speaker 8: tree operation doing some pretty ugly cutting of second or

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Speaker 8: third cuttings. They were going to cut everything down again.

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Speaker 2: An article in California Magazine, journalist Jonathan Littman thought there

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Speaker 2: might be a motive beyond saving the trees behind choosing

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Speaker 2: the small Lancaster operation to disrupt. In his article, Litman

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Speaker 2: notes that the Lancaster land was mostly other types of trees,

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Speaker 2: and the few redwoods that they did have were not

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Speaker 2: old growth. So why of all the possible roads to

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Speaker 2: blockade did Judy choose one serving the Lancasters in tiny Whitehorn.

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Speaker 2: Litman quotes Gladys Lancaster as saying that the reason why

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Speaker 2: they were targeted was that one of their neighbors and

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Speaker 2: a buddy had been quote growing pot on that property

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Speaker 2: for years. Judy, according to this article, often told reporters

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Speaker 2: about how she enjoyed smoking fat joints that she called hooters.

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Speaker 2: The timber harvest preparations being made by the Lancaster operation

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Speaker 2: would make it impossible for their neighbors to plant that

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Speaker 2: year's illegal marijuana crop. Environmentalist and reporter Greg King pointed

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Speaker 2: out that the Lancasters were in fact causing environmental damage

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Speaker 2: with their timber efforts, including bulldozing a stream bed that

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Speaker 2: fed them a tolly river a salmon run. What it

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Speaker 2: started as a relatively peaceful standoff turned when a man

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Speaker 2: known as lumber Larry drove his pickup close to the

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Speaker 2: side of the road where Earth First demonstrators and their

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Speaker 2: children were standing. The demonstrators yelled at lumber Larry that

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Speaker 2: there were children present and he shouldn't drive like that.

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Speaker 2: As demonstrators got out their cameras to document the moment,

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Speaker 2: lumber Larry got out of his car and held an

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Speaker 2: act threateningly above his head. Mendocino County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant

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Speaker 2: Larry Gander described what happened next.

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Speaker 7: A lagger repeatedly asked an Earth verset photographer to quit

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Speaker 7: taking his picture. Allegedly, the photographer came within one foot

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Speaker 7: of a lagger still taking pictures. The lagger became angry

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Speaker 7: and through the camera to the ground.

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Speaker 8: That was taking pictures of a little confrontation between the

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Speaker 8: Earth Firsters with all their signs, and they were playing

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Speaker 8: their instruments and singing. But these timber workers were very

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Speaker 8: unhappy with this.

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Speaker 2: Earth Firsters would later say that law enforcement seemed to

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Speaker 2: take the Lancaster's side in what followed, so the photographers

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Speaker 2: of noxiousness may be overstated, and it wasn't the lagger

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Speaker 2: who threw down the camera but Gladys Lancaster.

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Speaker 8: Anyway, missus Lancaster grabbed my camera and Judy put down

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Speaker 8: her violin and went after my camera. But then one

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Speaker 8: of the other sons came along and says, no one

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Speaker 8: touches my mother, and he takes his fist by the

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Speaker 8: side of my hand and he lands right in the

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Speaker 8: middle of the damil's face.

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Speaker 2: This was the son David Lancaster, who punched an activist

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Speaker 2: in her fifties named mem Hill, breaking her nose.

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Speaker 8: Was a little bit of a dotty broker. Fortunately there

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Speaker 8: were more Earth firsters said the loggers and the laggers

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Speaker 8: ended up at the bottom of the pile, but one

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Speaker 8: of the sons of the family went back to his

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Speaker 8: pickup truck and got the rifle, and fortunately he was

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Speaker 8: the sober and he just fired a shot in the air.

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Speaker 2: According to Judy, David Lancaster's brother got the rifle and yelled,

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Speaker 2: you fucking commy hippies, I'll kill you. He later told

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Speaker 2: the San Francisco Examiner that he fired the rifle quote

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Speaker 2: to break up a riot when lady attacked had hit

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Speaker 2: my mom and some guy hit my uncle, Larry upside

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Speaker 2: the head with a chunk of wood.

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Speaker 8: The Sheriff's fighting come out there with their dogs and

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Speaker 8: their tear gas, and all the whole riot patrol come

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Speaker 8: out and they didn't even bother to talk to their

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Speaker 8: first year They just talked to the laggers. The Sheriff's

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Speaker 8: department out there was totally on the side of the operation.

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Speaker 2: Darryl Turney told the Examiner that nobody touched anybody from

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Speaker 2: his family. I swear on Mother Earth we didn't start it.

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Speaker 2: Judy told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that she was

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Speaker 2: punched and bruised, which may have happened in the melee,

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Speaker 2: but is not mentioned in any descriptions of the altercation.

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Speaker 2: No arrests were made. Memhill was taken to a local

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Speaker 2: hospital to get treatment.

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Speaker 4: On her nose.

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Speaker 2: Judy was furious that the landcasters were allowed to get

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Speaker 2: away scott free.

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Speaker 11: We can't tolerate violence against us. Earth First doesn't attack

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Speaker 11: people or living beings, only inanimate objects.

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Speaker 2: We'll talk about the organized opposition to Earth First in

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Speaker 2: next week's episode, but to understand some of what happened

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Speaker 2: the rest of the week, you need to know about

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Speaker 2: the yellow ribbon coal.

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Speaker 4: It reminds me where we are in the political devising

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Speaker 4: us of.

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Speaker 2: Today again, Journalist Mike Janellan.

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Speaker 4: Because at the time on the North Coast, this was

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Speaker 4: really the turmoil was unheard of. We had environmental activists

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Speaker 4: willing to go to any stretch, I mean, occupying company offices,

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Speaker 4: chaining themselves, sabotaging equipment, doing all of those things that

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Speaker 4: had just never been heard of. In the meantime, the

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Speaker 4: timber communities by and large were not only disturbed by this,

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Speaker 4: they were angered, varying, and it was that US versus

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Speaker 4: them mentality. So whatever, there was a protest anywhere near

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Speaker 4: a community, there was always a turnout. It was called

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Speaker 4: the Yellow ribbon. They were hanging yellow ribbons on trees

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Speaker 4: in their front doors, and it was like a maga movement.

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Speaker 4: So it was quite intense.

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Speaker 2: The Yellow Ribbon Coalition and had the appearance of a

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Speaker 2: grassroots group supporting the timber industry and timber workers, and

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Speaker 2: this was true to an extent, but they also received

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Speaker 2: their funding from the timber industry and were just one

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Speaker 2: of a small handful of groups with a similar arrangement.

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Speaker 2: Judy talked to Industrial Worker magazine for their October nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty nine edition, published two months after these events. Judy

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Speaker 2: described the Yellow Ribbon movement as Nazi like and said

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Speaker 2: that it was dangerous not to fly a yellow ribbon

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Speaker 2: outside your business in some small timber towns. Judy didn't

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Speaker 2: usually underplay or hand, suffice it to say that the

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Speaker 2: yellow ribbon and the color yellow in general were donned

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Speaker 2: to signify the wearer's allegiance to timber and antagonism towards

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Speaker 2: the environmentalists in general and Earth First in particular. Thursday,

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Speaker 2: August seventeenth, the seventeenth found the US Fish and Game

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Speaker 2: Commission holding a hearing and Reading, a town in Shasta County,

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Speaker 2: just east of the towns that Earth First was most

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Speaker 2: active in. The hearing, was one of the four offering

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Speaker 2: a chance for the public to weigh in on whether

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Speaker 2: the northern spotted owl should be designated as threatened, but

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Speaker 2: everyone knew the real stakes. If the owls were deemed threatened,

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Speaker 2: logging operations in their habitat area would have to stop.

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Speaker 2: The timber corporations were determined to have a big turnout

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Speaker 2: at the hearing as a show of industry solidarity. Louisiana

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Speaker 2: Pacific had sent a letter to employees telling them that

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Speaker 2: they would be shutting down the mills on Thursday and

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Speaker 2: urging workers to travel to Redding to attend the hearing.

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Speaker 2: The company in fact would run buses to the event.

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Speaker 2: The letter said, we want to send a message across

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Speaker 2: the country that this is not acceptable, and we can

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Speaker 2: do it by pulling out all the stops and descending

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Speaker 2: upon Redding in force. Louisiana Pacific also distributed yellow ribbons

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Speaker 2: so workers could identify themselves with a yellow ribbon coalition.

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Speaker 2: More than a thousand wood and mill workers left their

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Speaker 2: jobs to join the protest. According to the Chico Enterprise record.

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Speaker 2: Thousands of laggers and those relying on the timber industry

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Speaker 2: for jobs, wearing yellow hats, shirts, and carrying yellow balloons

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Speaker 2: to signify their solidarity, flooded reading Thursday in a massive

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Speaker 2: rally against the US Fish and Wildlife Service plan to

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Speaker 2: list the northern spotted owl as a threatened species. Estimates

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Speaker 2: of the crowd ranged from forty five hundred to six thousand.

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Speaker 2: The public hearing lasted seven and a half hours, and

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Speaker 2: eighty nine people spoke. Of those eighty nine, only five

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Speaker 2: supported listing the owls as a threatened species. The timber

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Speaker 2: industry had bankrolled a study of the owls. That study

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Speaker 2: had found, perhaps not surprisingly, that the owls were far

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Speaker 2: more numerous and widespread than the US Fish and Wildlife

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Speaker 2: Service claimed. This study, the industry funders, conceded, had only

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Speaker 2: done two of the required six field visits, but stood

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Speaker 2: by their findings. Environmentalists were very dubious, but it provided

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Speaker 2: the basis for the pro timber speaker's arguments against protecting

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Speaker 2: the owls. Earth First and other environmental groups avoided the scene.

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Speaker 2: The Santa Rosa Press Democrats summed it up with a

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Speaker 2: remark from an attendee.

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Speaker 7: The timber industry rolled up its sleeves and flexed its muscles.

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Speaker 2: Friday, August eighteenth. After largely sitting Thursday out, Earth First

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Speaker 2: was back at it on Friday, though with less drama

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Speaker 2: than earlier in the week. Protesters attempted to hang a

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Speaker 2: banner from a bridge over Highway one oh one near

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Speaker 2: Rohnert Park. The plan was to hang it facing north

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Speaker 2: flowing traffic so that motorists heading up for the weekend

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Speaker 2: would see the sign, which read save our Forests, earth First.

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Speaker 2: Gusty winds made it difficult to attach the banner, and

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Speaker 2: it had only been unfurled for about a minute before

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Speaker 2: a passing police officer had them take it down. Also

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Speaker 2: on Friday, Earth firsters including Judy, blockaded a road at

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Speaker 2: a Louisiana Pacific operation near the town of Navarro. The blockade,

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Speaker 2: which the Press Democrat described as log and twig barriers,

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Speaker 2: did not disrupt the timber operation, which simply re routed

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Speaker 2: the trucks to different highway access points. One of the

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Speaker 2: logging trucks they did encounter was driven by a man

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Speaker 2: named Donald Blake. They would see him again the following day, Saturday,

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Speaker 2: August nineteenth. The final event of the week of earth

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Speaker 2: First actions was to be a demonstration in the coastal

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Speaker 2: town of Fort Bragg, home to a Georgia Pacific mill

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Speaker 2: and the town closest to the Trisett that began the week,

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Speaker 2: Judy set out on the drive to Fort Bragg with

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Speaker 2: a car full of people. In her car were Darryl

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Speaker 2: Churney and another Earth First activist named Pam Davis, Judy's

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Speaker 2: two daughters and two of Pam's children. Judy talked about

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Speaker 2: this incident to Beth Bosk during an interview with New

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Speaker 2: Settler magazine. Her words are read by an actor.

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Speaker 11: So we were driving down the road and when we

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Speaker 11: got to Filo there were a lot of pedestrians and

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Speaker 11: I was slowed down. There was a logging truck following us.

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Speaker 11: It was not failgating, and I was looking at the pedestrians.

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Speaker 11: I wasn't looking in my rear view mirror at the time,

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Speaker 11: none of us were. When, with no warning whatsoever, that

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Speaker 11: there was no squeal of brakes, we were hit full

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Speaker 11: force by a logging true which fortunately was not loaded.

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Speaker 11: My car left the ground, sailed through the air and

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Speaker 11: hit another truck which was twice the size of my

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Speaker 11: car and pushed that truck up two steps and took

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Speaker 11: out a post holding up the porch in front of

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Speaker 11: a bar and filo.

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Speaker 8: The people who owned the.

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Speaker 11: Truck that was pushed up the porch were a Georgia

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Speaker 11: Pacific employee and a Department of Forestry employee who were

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Speaker 11: doing a spotted owl hunt on Georgia Pacific property. Except

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Speaker 11: they weren't in the forest. They were there at a

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Speaker 11: bar and filo. The coincidences were pretty astounding. A group

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Speaker 11: of earth Firsters hit by a logging truck knocked into

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Speaker 11: a truck carrying people doing a spotted owl search. It

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Speaker 11: was really terrifying. I haven't gotten past it. I still

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Speaker 11: flashed back on that feeling. It is a really violent

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Speaker 11: feeling to be hit like that by a big piece

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Speaker 11: of metal and to leave the ground, and to have

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Speaker 11: no control at all of the car, and to know

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Speaker 11: I was hitting into something else. It was a pretty

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Speaker 11: terrifying thing. We all got concussions and we were all

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Speaker 11: out of commission for a month after that, so we

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Speaker 11: didn't really think clearly about what to do about it. Yeah,

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Speaker 11: at the time, we thought it was an accident, and

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Speaker 11: that is what we said publicly. But afterwards we saw

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Speaker 11: a video of our demonstrations at Navarro and we realized

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Speaker 11: that the truck was from the same company we had

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Speaker 11: blockaded the day before, and then we got a description

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Speaker 11: of the driver and it matched exactly the driver we

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Speaker 11: had blockaded the day before.

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Speaker 2: The driver was thirty nine year old Donald Blake, from

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Speaker 2: the Navarro blockade. Judy later claimed that Blake got out

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00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 2: of his truck shaken, saying that he didn't realize that

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Speaker 2: there were kids in the car. The implication was that

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Speaker 2: he had rammed the car on purpose. Law enforcement treated

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00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 2: it as a traffic accident, and my.

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Speaker 12: Car was total turned into an accordion and we were

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Speaker 12: all sent to the hospital, and they refused to investigate

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Speaker 12: it as anything but a traffic accident, despite photographic evidence

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Speaker 12: that we showed them to prove that it was the

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Speaker 12: same croup. And I think that what was happening was

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Speaker 12: a real pattern of non enforcement of law regarding Earth firsters,

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Speaker 12: and what this did was it gave a green light

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Speaker 12: to anybody who would attack us.

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Speaker 2: Donald Blake was never charged with anything associated with the crash. Judy, Darryl,

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Speaker 2: and the other passengers didn't make it to the culminating

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Speaker 2: event of the week, the demonstration in Fort Bragg. That

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Speaker 2: event turned out to be low key in comparison to

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Speaker 2: what had come before. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported

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Speaker 2: that fifty demonstrators, including earth First activists as well as

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Speaker 2: other environmentalists, gathered in front of the gates to Georgia

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Speaker 2: Pacific's mill. Apparently, beyond a few cat calls, there were

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Speaker 2: no confrontations, and with this, the week of earth First

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Speaker 2: actions and the timber industry response came to a close.

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Speaker 2: After Spotted Owl Week, any suspicions Earth First might have

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Speaker 2: had that law enforcement would not seriously pursue cases of

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00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 2: violence and threats against activists had been proven true. They

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00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 2: were essentially on their own in Ekotopia, and as they

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Speaker 2: planned their largest and most ambitious effort yet, the atmosphere

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Speaker 2: of looming violence they had just experienced was about to

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Speaker 2: get more intense, much more intense, next week on Rip Current.

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Speaker 11: Rip Current was written and hosted by Toby Ball. Our

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00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 11: executive producers are Trevor Young and Matt Frederick, with supervising

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00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 11: producer remet El Kylie and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk.

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00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 11: Original music by Jeff stoff Our. Voice actor for Judy

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00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 11: Barry is Gina Rickikey. Editing and sound design by Nomes Griffin,

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00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 11: Rima el Kylie and Jesse Funk. The show is mixed

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00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 11: by Rima el Kylie. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

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Speaker 11: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

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00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 11: podcasts