Friday, December 18, 2009

Action Alert: Petition to Stop the Swap at Wolf Creek

From the paper-wrenching ninjas at Colorado Wild:

Stop the swap- oppose the legislative land exchange.

CLICK HERE to sign a petition to oppose the Legislative Land Trade!
 

Wolf Creek Pass needs your help to remain the beautiful area that you and millions of others know and love. Out-of-state developers continue to pursue plans for a "Village" at Wolf Creek, a city of 8,000-10,000 people at the top of the Pass. This intense development plan in an otherwise undeveloped area entirely surrounded by National Forest would dramatically impact the entire region. Impacts of the proposed development threaten local businesses in nearby Archuleta and Rio Grande Counties, unspoiled backcountry recreation opportunities along the Continental Divide, water supply and water quality for downstream communities, rare and ecologically valuable fen wetlands, and one of the most critical wildlife corridors in the Southern Rocky Mountains.

Developer Red McCombs has spent more than 20 years attempting to circumvent legitimate public review of his proposed "Village." McCombs remains unwilling to trust his project to any traditional process of public analysis, disclosure, and decision-making, and has therefore hired a new team of lobbyists to attempt to circumvent this review process through a legislative land exchange to gain not only access, but also additional developable property.

While the idea that the FS would trade McCombs undevelopable wetlands for developable land with highway access is unthinkable, Friends of Wolf Creek is far more concerned about the process McCombs is pursuing to try to receive approval for the exchange. Rather than go though the traditional Forest Service land exchange review process - in which the public would have a chance to weigh in and the Forest Service EIS would disclose the impacts (pro and con) of the exchange before making a decision - McCombs and his new band of lobbyists is asking Congressman John Salazar to perform this land exchange legislatively
. 

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Jeff Luers is FREE!



(Wed, 12/16/09)

Dear Friends,

This morning in Portland, Oregon, Jeff walked out of prison a free man. We have a press release of information available here.

But there’s really not much else to say because we are too busy celebrating! Join us in the celebration! You helped make this possible, you helped Jeff make it through the most difficult time in his life. And now, he can start a new life and finally see the sunrise and sunset, hold hands, and hike in the forest, among everything else we take for granted.

Thank you so very much for your support. We will be sending out more info about Jeff, but we wanted to share this with you asap.

Thanks again, endlessly,

Friends of Jeff Free Luers
 
PRESS RELEASE:

Civil Liberties Defense Center
Lauren Regan, Attorney & Executive Director
259 East 5th Avenue, Suite 300-A
Eugene, Oregon 97401
(541) 687-9180 Tel
(541) 686-2137 Fax
Email: lregan@cldc.org

Media Advisory—for immediate release December 16, 2009

Eco-prisoner Jeff “Free” Luers released from prison

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

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Denver anarchist held without bail in Copenhagen: Call for Solidarity!

freetherock

From our comrades at Denver Anarchist Black Cross:

Today we learned that an anarchist comrade and dear friend of ours has been arrested on two charges at the ongoing Cop15 actions in Copenhagen, Denmark and will be held without possibility of bail for at least three weeks. Solidarity in the form of letters of support (free to send), as well as legal donations, is urgently needed.

Noah "Rockslide" of Denver, Colorado moved to Copenhagen several months ago and has been active in the organizing of resistance to the Cop 15 Summit. He has been arrested and charged with two counts (one is the Danish equivalent of a felony, the other a misdemeanor): Violence Towards Police and Disturbing the Public Peace. He is being held on remand at a jail outside Copenhagen awaiting a preliminary hearing on Jan 4th 2009, when he will be able make a petition for his release. It is possible that this preliminary hearing could be his trial, though this is unexpected because they normally take longer to prepare and the courts will be on holiday because of Christmas.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Fight Development at Wolf Creek!

It's been a while...

WilderPress, as a print publication, as a project on hold. With an editorial collective totaling two, we embarked upon a project we were perhaps not prepared for in experience, time, and resources. For this, we apologize, and we hereby vow to take the project back up when we are able. We thank everyone for their contributions and assistance. If you are interested in helping this project get back off the ground, please contact us.

We post today to alert you of new developments in the struggle to protect Wolf Creek from development.

The Durango chapter of High Country Earth First! (Colorado) is calling upon ecodefenders to contact officials and rally at the December 8th and 10th meetings in Pagosa Springs to oppose the Village at Wolf Creek and the legislative land exchange.

More information: http://colorado.indymedia.org/node/2334

12/8 Rally at Archuleta County Court House: Oppose Legislative Land Exchange at Wolf Creek!
12/10 Rally at Pagosa Springs Town Hall: Oppose Legislative Land Exchange at Wolf Creek!

earthfirstdurango@riseup.net

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Earth First! Journal Needs Your Support!

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the Sonoran Desert and the desks of the Earth First! Journal!!! After spending a week in southern Oregon for this summers’ Round River Rendezvous, the Earth First! Journal Collective has been hard at work on the next issue of the Journal.

With many thanks to a generous donation from our poetry editor, we were able to mail out the Lughnasadh July/August 2009 edition of the Earth First! Journal. We hope all of our subscribers have received their copy of the EF! Journal and encourage folks to e-mail us if there is ever a problem with your subscription.

Next week we will mail out our annual summer donation letter and want to thank everyone for making a contribution of any size to help with finances. The financial state of the Journal does not effect the quality of the publication but it certainly makes it difficult to mail it out, as well as keep the bills paid! Luckily…

There are many ways to support the Earth First! Journal

The following is a list of possibilities, please e-mail us if you have questions, need materials or want to inform us that you, in fact, put on a benefit show and are going to mail us a donation to help your favorite publication from the direct action environmental movement!!!

1. Become a subscriber to the Earth First! Journal

Subscribing to the EF! Journal is the best way you can support the publication! You can also ask your local library, infoshop, collective house, university library or club if they would consider a subscription to the EF! Journal. E-mail us if you would like to receive a complimentary copy of the EF! Journal as an incentive to begin subscribing!

2. Host a benefit show in your hometown!

Benefit shows come in all shapes and sizes, from live music events to bake sales.

The Earth First! Journal recently asked the band, The Devil Makes Three, if they would play a benefit show to help raise funds for legal support with the anti-I-69 campaign—and they did! Over $700 was raised in one night! A big thanks to Lucia, Pete & Cooper of The Devil Makes Three for your support!

The Earth First! Roadshow also did a kick-ass job of raising tons of money for the Journal, as well as spreading the word about our 30-year histroy of campaigns, and educating folks about the need for good security culture—through in-depth presentations to more than 70 audiences across the country! Thank you Roadshow crew for all your support!

Other benefit show ideas include: hosting a film screening or short film fest, hosting a vegan social with food and games, chili-making contest, set up a community variety show or organize a pledge-drive bike ride.

3. Table at an event with Earth First! merchandise

We can start you off with copies of the EF! Journal and send you a merchandise catalog to order items at bulk rates. All our merchandise is viewable at our “store” on this website.

4. Buy Earth First! merchandise

There is a growing variety of trinkets and literature available from the on-line store. Every order over $40 will receive a free copy of the EF! Journal 20th Year Anniversary edition—an awesome compilation of the history of Earth First! and the campaigns that define our no compromise movement. Includes more than 45 amazing articles from founding members of Earth First!, as well as Rod Cornoado, Karen Pickett, Paul Watson and many more.

5. Become a distributor of the Earth First! Journal

If you regularly table at events, help run a bookstore or info shop that sells other periodicals and movement merchandise or are going on tour with your band and would like to help spread the work of the Earth First! movement—you could become a small distributor for the EF! Journal! You can also ask your local independently-owned bookstore or food co-op if they would like to subscribe or distribute the EF! Journal. E-mail nettle(at)earthfirstjournal.org for more information and to receive a catalog of all our merchandise

6. Join the Earth First! Journal Collective

Short-term editors are needed to be an essential part of our collective in Tucson, Arizona. Short-term editors spend a couple months in production on a single issue of the EF! Journal. If you have a strong interest in the content that appears in the pages of the EF! Journal, can handle spending most of your time working in front of a computer and would enjoy working in a small collective, please send an e-mail to: wildginger(at)earthfirstjournal.org to find out more information.

7. Buy ad space in the Earth First! Journal

We are currently looking for advertisers who do not go against our ethics. With a limited selection of businesses and organizations to ask if they would like to advertise in the EF! Journal it is somewhat difficult to find them. If you are interested in advertising with the Earth First! Journal, please e-mail us at: ads(at)earthfirstjournal.org for more information and receive our ad rates.

With that said, all donations are greatly appreciated! You can donate to us through our website, give us a call to place a debit or credit donation at: 520-620-6900 or send checks and money orders to:

Earth First! Journal
PO Box 3023
Tucson, AZ 85702

Thank you for your support!

For the Wild,

-the Earth First Journal collective

Friday, April 17, 2009

Call for Direct Action Camp at 'Feral Futures' Gathering in Colorado

click to enlarge



‘Feral Futures’ is a free, informal, and loosely structured anarcho-primitivist/anti-civ gathering taking place in Southwest Colorado from the New Moon at the end of May (around the 24th) to the Full Moon at the beginning of June (around the 6th or 7th). Dates are approximate. Folks are free to come and go as they please. The site is at a sacred hot springs along a wild river in National Forest bordered by Wilderness Area.

We would like to provide space at ‘Feral Futures,’ closer to the parking, for a direct action camp encompassing things that are not necessarily within the traditional framework of “primitivism” and/or “rewilding,” but can nonetheless be utilized in an anti-civ praxis, if folks are interested in facilitating such workshops. We are also hoping the Earth First! Road Show will be stopping by!

Right now we are seeking folks who would like to facilitate workshops and skills shares either deeper in the woods at the anarcho-primitivist part of the gathering or closer to the parking in the action camp part of the gathering. We are seeking folks who can facilitate trainings in rewilding, survival, and earth skills, as well as folks who can facilitate direct action trainings, civil disobedience workshops, know your rights trainings, anti-oppression trainings, etc.

If you are interested, and for site directions, contact feralfutures@riseup.net

www.myspace.com/feralfutures

'Wild Roots, Feral Futures' Anti-Civ/Primitivist Gathering in Colorado

click to enlarge


An informal anti-civ, primitive living skills, and rewilding gathering in the Wild Rockies of Colorado

Summer 2009! New Moon of May to Full Moon of June

(May 24th — June 6th, 2009)

‘Wild Roots, Feral Futures’ is a free and informal primitive gathering taking place this summer in Southern Colorado. The site is on National Forest land, bordered by Wilderness. Our base camp is a natural hot springs along a wild river.

Though a communal kitchen will form, be prepared for self-sufficiency with both food and water. Come prepared for rain, cold, heat, sun, etc.

Dates are approximate. You may come and go as you please.

We are seeking folks who are interested in facilitating workshops and trainings in primitive living and rewilding skills, as well as anti-civ strategies and tactics.

For more information, or to get involved, contact feralfutures [at] riseup [dot] net

See you in the woods!

—The Feral Futures Crew

www.myspace.com/feralfutures

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Tucson Environmental Radicals Target Homes, Cars

Tucson vandals claiming to act in the name of animal rights and the environment have begun targeting the homes and cars of earth destroyers and animal exploiters.

In two separate incidents on Feb. 19, a researcher at the University of Arizona had her water valve cemented shut, and an employee of a mining company had her tires flattened and her windows etched with hateful sayings.

A group called Tucson Hooligans Attack at Night, Duh – or, Tucson H.A.A.N.D. – claimed responsibility for the acts in a news release on an independent media Web site. No phone number for the group was listed.

The post said the group cemented the water meter of researcher Katalin Gothard because of her research with monkeys, and that Kathy Arnold’s car tire was slashed and her window etched because of her job with Augusta Resources Rosemont Copper Project. Augusta wants to open a 1.2-square-mile open-pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains.

The group also claimed responsibility for a Jan. 15 incident in which expletive-laced slogans were etched on the windows and garage doors of the home of Si Schorr, a Tucson attorney and former chairman of the Arizona Transportation Board. The group said he was targeted for his support of an Interstate 10 bypass route that environmentalists say would damage valuable habitat.

The incidents were confirmed by police.

.....

In its news release, Tucson H.A.A.N.D. dedicated its most recent actions to four animal-rights activists recently arrested by the FBI for alleged attacks on animal researchers at the University of California. The four are being charged with using “force, violence, or threats to interfere with the operation of the University of California in violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act,” according to a San Francisco FBI news release.

[end excerpt]

Click here to read more » » »

The original Indymedia post: Tucson H.A.A.N.D. Attacks Vivsectors’ home and Mining Scumbag

A Message from the WilderPress! Editorial Collective

A Letter from the Editors, WilderPress! Issue #1:

We must first begin by thanking all those involved with making this publication possible—to Maria’s Bookshop and Durango Natural Foods for their interest in stocking WilderPress! and supporting free speech; to those wild folks who submitted their thoughts, feelings and stories—without you this would not be possible; to all those who pick this up, read it, and evaluate their position on the environmental movement or at least how they live their daily lives…we bow to you.

We need a drastic change in philosophy and action across the globe. There is no better place to start, and no better place to defend, than our own backyard. There is no greater fundamental challenge to human beings than the collapse of the very biosphere that supports life as we know it. A biosphere, that quite simply, we are destroying.

The hour is upon us. How will we choose to act in the vital years to come? Surely we cannot be so ignorant as to continue down a path in which we destroy our own home for short- term economic gain. Prosperity does not have to equal growth. Yet the forests continue to fall, the oceans continue to die, the land continues its path to infertility, more rivers lay tame—shackled by concrete and steel—more children starve, more cultures crumble to the great corporate tyrants of the world…the biosphere suffers—business as usual…

Many humans live in a world plagued with denial and apathy, particularly in the United States. It is easy in this county—one that prides itself on skewed view of individualism and materialism—for people to turn their backs on issues such as environmental degradation and social injustices, as long as the issues don’t seem to directly affect their day-to-day accumulation of “stuff.” Unfortunately, the idea of individualism that has developed in this country is not one made of many positive attributes. Instead of individualism defining our creativity, and fueling a free society where all citizens are supported, and where all share the benefits of each others hard work, it reveals itself as radically possessive, hubristic, and self-centered, complete with an obsessive drive to compete with neighbors and fellow human beings. The “American Dream” has become more and more of a rat race and more and more of a nightmare.

No one seems to question this system or its affects…it is simply what they have been inculcated and conditioned to do, and they deny that anything is wrong, blaming their headache, beer gut, and insomnia on “just a long day at work” or “our busy schedule”, swearing that next week will be different, that they will do something to change the way they feel, that they aren’t going to take it anymore. Bullshit. All the while Americans fuel their obsession and addiction to material possessions, and continue to ignore the consequences of an all too affluent lifestyle—mostly because, until now, the consequences have rarely had direct effect.

The reason we bring all this up is not only to increase awareness of what should already be too clear, or to condemn a system we are increasingly sickened by, but rather to pose a new year’s resolution for the whole nation, or at the very least one for Durango and the Four Corners. This is our call to action—a call for a change we so desperately need, a lifestyle we secretly, and not so secretly, long for, and a revival of the body, mind, and spirit we used to possess. In 2009 let us drop this futile concept of individualism we have nurtured for all too long; it is very much overrated and certainly not in tune with the sustainable, livable world we so direly need to foster. Let us remember what it means to support our family, our neighbors, our community, our nation, and our world—human and non-human alike.

WilderPress! is here to provide a voice for the natural world, and those dedicated to its defense. We are here to promote free speech, creativity, thought, theory and action. The environmental crisis is like no other challenge humans have ever faced, and we must approach the struggle with multifaceted strategy. Awareness and solidarity are our most powerful weapons and we must come together to ensure a future that supports life, not destroys it. The environment is in peril and no longer does economic status, religious affiliation, political standing, ethnic background or geographic location determine where we stand. We are all living beings, and we all need a healthy Earth in order to survive. Everyone is affected equally by the degradation of the environment, and everyone will pay the price should we choose to continue…

The time has come to rise up in defense of Mother Earth, in resistance against those who are willfully enslaving and destroying the natural world, and in solidarity with those who know humans cannot continue on our current path of destruction. We must reclaim our place as responsible members within the greater community of living beings upon this planet, and act accordingly. This means taking action against the systematic ecocide perpetrated by industrial civilization and resisting the destruction of the Earth by any means necessary. The future of all life on Earth—human and non-human alike—depends on a healthy land base. The sooner the destruction is stopped, the better. Inaction is complicity. Complicity is abhorrent. We must come together in the name of something greater than ourselves, and yet intricately intertwined with our very being and exsistence. Let us vow to never let our children use the word wilderness in the past tense…

This is for our children, for the planet, and for ourselves… This publication is in solidarity with those who continue to fight for a livable world, where all life is valued, and to those who wish to join the battle. This is to the defense of wild places, by wild people, at whatever cost, and by any means necessary. The time to resist has come… Let us love together and laugh together and fight together for a better world. See you in the woods…and please don’t be too late…

—The WilderPress! Editorial Collective

Earth Warrior

by Dee Allen, WilderPress! Issue #1

Our eternal parent
Bore countless offspring
And in her most agonised moments,
She summoned only one.
Proud son of the Pascua Yaqui nation
Answered the call.
Cries for help felt throughout his bones & sinew
Like sudden tremors. Time to act.
Honourbound in defence of the mother of all,
Every whale was spared of the fisher’s net & harpoon.
Every whaling ship sank into the deep cold blue.
Every old-growth forest did not suffer slashing & burning.
Every cage became an open cage.
Every trap became a damaged trap.
Every chief executive & their company underlings
Shamed for their crimes.
The animal nations & nature live much longer
Because of the Earth Warrior
Galvanizing two movements that are but a
Continuation of an old indigenous struggle.
Proud son of the Pascua Yaqui nation
Answered the call long ago.
Man-spirit and world-spirit are one.
He rescued countless lives from captivity
But who will rise to save the Earth Warrior
From the cage surrounding him?
Even warriors need heroes.

W: 10.22.08 [For Michael Sykes.]


















(Although to our knowledge currently free, this was one of the best pictures of Dee we could find!)

The Art of Downsizing According to Paul Conlin

by Daniel Lorber, WilderPress! Issue #1

In this second decade of the American green movement (the first being the ‘60s and it’s "back to the land" and "natural" ethos) there has been much talk, architectural design and actual execution of the concept of downsizing. In yet another way to reduce our carbon footprint, many people are considering reducing the size of their dwelling space, or actually doing it. Americans are known for their massive homes, in comparison to many other western countries. I myself have lived in a rambling and spacious old farmhouse in upstate New York since 1987. It has much more space than my wife and I actually need to live -- about 2,000 sq. ft.. We now own a much smaller home in Bisbee, Arizona with a total of 700 sq. ft. You would think 700 sq. ft. is a sacrifice and an appropriate living space for two that will reasonably need to be heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. But there are those who are taking the art of downsizing much further. The internet is rife with start-up companies touting the advantages -- and pleasures -- of small houses. I’m talking 150-200 sq. ft. here. How fast or how slow these houses catch on may rely on energy costs over the next decade or so. Don’t forget, it wasn’t the Iraq War that doomed George Bush and the Republicans, it was the economy. The only way to get most Americans to change is to hit them in their wallets. Ethics, morality, practicality, environmental soundness be damned -- take their money and they’ll buy the tiniest car, the tiniest house, the biggest windmill or solar panel.

For Paul Conlin, the concept of downsizing is different from most Americans; I’ll go so far to say it is different than most humans. You see, Conlin is downsizing from a 90 sq. ft. living space to 20. That’s right -- 20 tiny, claustrophobic, inadequate square feet. Or, if you have a different perspective, 20 luxurious, spacious, plentiful square feet (if your current abode is a two-man tent)

Paul Conlin has a well-tuned life. He is a carpenter by trade, who has built a business exclusively by word-of-mouth. His spring, summers and early fall are spent in the Berkshire Mountains of eastern New York and western Massachusetts. There he lives in a small cabin at the end of a dirt road in the woods. He has no computer, no TV, no air conditioning. His refrigerator runs on propane. His lights are powered by propane as well. His bathroom is an outhouse a stone’s throw from the cabin. The only modern technological items he has are a cell phone, mainly to be able to conduct business, and a portable DVD player with a seven-inch screen. He has no health insurance. For a 21st century man, he’s pretty well off the grid.

For the past six or seven winters Paul has been living in southern Arizona in a vintage 1968 Silver Air Stream trailer that has a small bedroom and bathroom, tiny kitchen and a couch of sorts -- which, along with a small side table makes up his living room/eating nook. The whole place comprises a total of 90 square feet.















Paul’s current humble abode

I visited Paul earlier this winter at his trailer, which was parked at the Shady Dell in the quintessential hippie town of Bisbee, AZ. The Shady Dell is a kind of retro-RV park that caters especially to owners of those old-style RVs like the Air Stream Paul owns. We were sitting in his minuscule living room, imbibing a Mexican beverage, when he told me he was going to sell the trailer. "It’s more room than I need," he explained. When asked where he would live, he said he’d take his 1978 VW microbus out west next winter and live in that. The VW has a bed, sink, stove, refrigerator and a few lesser comforts. Total square footage: 20.

Now some might think taking the concept of downsizing to such a minuscule level is going too far, but not Paul Conlin. He seems to have a sense of what a person needs to live this life: adequate food, shelter, a good book, a few liberal periodicals to read weekly or monthly, access to a library with a good DVD collection, a decent beer now and again.


“The word 'comfortable' is purely subjective. For Cindy and John McCain, comfort may mean 7 houses. For someone else, it’s the back of a van with a comfortable bed, a headlamp and a little heater. But what does a person really need?”


He told me that he will often travel too far from either his western or eastern base to commute each day to whatever carpentry job he’s engaged in. So he’ll take his vehicle, park it at or near the worksite, and live in it until the work is done. Paul does not see this as a hardship. In fact, he’ll tell you he is perfectly comfortable lying in the back of his Izuzu Trooper (which has none of the amenities of the VW) parked in your driveway. Conlin has gone so far as to prefer the Trooper or the VW van to a bedroom in the house he is working on. I met two friends of his in New Lebanon, NY who told me they had invited Paul to stay in their comfortable and spacious house while doing a renovation for them. He declined and lived in his VW for 3 weeks.

Conlin, who is 56, grew up in Freeport, LI, in a family of seven children. He came of age during the 60s and at 16 he attended the Woodstock Music Festival. In his late teens and 20’s he drifted around the country: he worked at the molybdenum mine in Climax, Colorado; he did shrimping and roughnecking in Texas; he worked on a fish boat and did geothermal mapping in Alaska. All these jobs had one thing in common: they were all outdoors. Paul is an outdoors guy -- he most often hikes or bikes -- and he needs to be if he is going to spend 6 months of each year in a 20 sq. ft. domicile.

But Paul Conlin’s downsizing decision brings up the question at the heart of the matter: how much room, really, does a person need to carry on a fulfilling and comfortable life? The word "comfortable" is purely subjective. For Cindy and John McCain, comfort may mean 7 houses. For someone else, it’s the back of a van with a comfortable bed, a headlamp and a little heater. But what does a person really need? A 200 sq. ft. kitchen? A den, living room, family room, exercise room, office room, room, room, room ad nauseum? Americans are known to be overindulgent in every aspect of their lives leading to the fact that even though Americans constitute 5% of the world's population they consume 24% of the world's energy. It’s time to take a lesson from the likes of Paul Conlin and join the Downsize Revolution.




















Late 70’s model Volkswagen Microbus similar to the one Paul will call home.

Call Me a Sagebrush Patriot

by Ken Wright, WilderPress! Issue #1

I live in a fantastic corner of the American West, on the edge of where mountains fall away into canyon-carved desert. I live in one of this area's mountain valleys, but at mid-morning on this day, I find myself on a high above-tree-line pass, taking in a grand sweep of the country. To the east stands a far-ranging range of peaks, rippling away like the choppy surface of a lake. To my immediate south rises a single, massive peak, a great, banded pyramid off whose face falls a sloping scree field that sprawls down and away to the rolling foothill forest lands that reach outward and downward through climate zones, from subalpine fir to piñon and juniper, across the rising and falling of foothills and gathering creeks, then across a river and its side canyons to the green valley bottom where squats the nearest town to the west.

Looking in that direction from this 11,000-plus-foot perch, I can see across dry sage lands for a hundred miles or more, and in that distance I see the wall of a flat table-top mountain, the blue bodies of three distant mountain ranges, and the dendritic arms of two major river systems.

And when I take all this in, I feel lucky. Blessed, even.

Let's face it: we in the American West are blessed. No need to be shy or humble or coy about this. We know it. We are blessed.

Sure, sure, there are mountain ranges and deserts and valleys in other places, some really pretty ones, even. But what makes the American West a place like no other, is that, even though this landscape spread out before me today is not all pristine wilderness, the fact remains that much of the American West is largely undeveloped, unindustrialized, and unprofitable. It is inhabited mainly by small, scattered, struggling villages and towns, places where making a living is a constant challenge and is usually somehow tied to the surrounding land, from ranching to mining to tourism. Hard places to get ahead, if that's your aim. But that's okay with most of us who live here because we are strange by modern standards: we like it that way.


“I worry because too many of us who do love the West are smugly content to go out and herd cattle or cut timber or bike or fish or hunt or ski or bike or hike while not lifting one tired finger or raspy voice or bloody-knuckled fist to defend the lands that make that work and play possible.”


For us, the reward for that struggling is all around, all that glorious land we are free to gaze into, to roam over, to work and play on. In the American West, ski bums and grunge rock climbers and line cook/river guides and over-educated, urban-ex-patriot, former-professional manual laborers are the 21st Century pastoralists, joining ranchers and hardrock miners and 1960s back-to-the-earth neo-hunters and gatherers -- as well as the earlier, true hunters and gatherers -- clinging voluntarily to inefficient and uneconomical lifestyles that view life an land as more valuable than money. We do that because here remains huge expanses of open countryside that are open to all, and built upon this land thrives an intact and interwoven network of working rural communities still dependent upon and humbled by this great landscape.

What is truly blessed about the American West, though, is that, like few places on earth, our kids have a chance to inherit this land-loving culture, to raise their own families amidst big, healthy hunks of wild and rural country that they, too, will be free to wander and work in when they want and need.

It's not by some lucky quirk of fate that the American West remains so undeveloped while the rest of rest of rural American is being bulldozed by people, houses, industry, agribusiness, resource liquidation, repeatedly redundant commercial strips, and sterile suburban mausoleums. It's because we have a defense mechanism, an antibody to the economic-land-development virus, that is also unique in the whole world: public land. Lots of public land. A massive shield of public land. More than half the land between the Sierra Nevada and the Front Range is owned by all Americans regardless of income or residence or social class. And it is this public land that inoculates much of the West from the early 21st Century cult of economics that devours wildlands and guts rural landscapes everywhere else.

Our public lands are the American West -- not just the physical West, but the cultural and psychological West. The West's great open spaces -- high country, deserts, forests, rivers -- give rise to the distinctly Western attitude and spirit we here so treasure, whether we be ranchers or bow hunters or ski bums or bankers. And those great open spaces remain open and accessible because they are public. Yet, remarkably, it seems few people here recognize this bedrock importance of our public lands. Sure, we use them, we hunt and fish and go four-wheeling on them. We go camping and take pictures and enjoy the views they preserve and protect. Some folks who live outside the region just visit them once every year or ten, and then spend the time between visits dreaming and reading and telling stories about them.

And whether we live here or not, we often argue, often vehemently over how they're managed. But while we argue about the economics and ecology of the uses of our public lands, rarely do we stop to acknowledge that the reason we still have anything to argue about is because so much of this land is public. Without public lands, our arguments would be irrelevant, sold off for subdivisions, strip malls, strip mines, clear cuts, dude ranches, theme parks and facade resorts and posted "no trespassing" getaway homes and gated communities and private game ranches. Need proof? Remember those places that were until recently still rural: New England, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Piedmont of the Carolinas, the southern Appalachians. Yes, we are blessed. But I worry.

I worry because too many of us who do love the West are smugly content to go out and herd cattle or cut timber or bike or fish or hunt or ski or bike or hike while not lifting one tired finger or raspy voice or bloody-knuckled fist to defend the lands that make that work and play possible. I worry because we're all too friggin' busy attacking each other for what the other is doing on our public lands to see that the reason we have anything to argue about at all is because so much of this land is public. But we can't afford to bicker anymore. Once we lose our public lands -- all or some, ecologically or economically -- they are gone for good.

If you love the West as, a holdout of rural communities surrounded by a dazzling and undeveloped landscape that you and your children and their children all own, then you must have the courage to -- the responsibility to -- stand up. We need to put our arguments aside and rally together over out public lands as refuges no just of land, but of culture. All of us who love and need what these lands give us beyond the dollars they’re worth must make a vow: We will not let anyone take them away.

Those who wanted to take these lands away once called themselves Sagebrush Rebels, rebelling against the “public” in public land for the money that could be extracted by making them private. Call me a Sagebrush Patriot: a fighter standing by my country -- as in countryside, as in country living, as in big open wild country -- where our wild spirits can grow and live, and where our kids can grow up to be both wilderness nuts and ranchers, living and working close to the land, like humans are supposed to.

To do that, we need an army of Sagebrush Patriots, a diverse but unified force of Western people -- not just organized environmentalists, but fishermen and hunters and ORVers, alongside backpackers and mountain bikers and loggers and ranchers -- standing together as a vanguard for the future.

Blessed people in a blessed country. Let's keep it that way.

This essay is excerpted from “Why I'm Against It All”. Ken Wright's latest book is “The Monkey Wrench Dad: Dispatches from the Backyard Frontline” (Raven's EyePress)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Our Hats Go Off to Direct Action











Tim DeChristopher, real auction hero


By Travis Custer, WilderPress! Issue #1

Ok, so I know the news is a little old, but we wouldn’t be able to release the first issue without paying our dues to Tim DeChristopher and his successful battle against the Bush Administration, and their final attempts at ecological destruction in the American West. For those not quite sure what I’m talking about, I am speaking about the December auction of around 150,000 acres of Utah Wilderness that was thrown to the block for oil and gas bidders to seize for development and exploration. Many described the selling of some of Utah’s most pristine areas, including land around Arches National Park, Labyrinth Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, Dinosaur Monument, and a handful of other pristine areas in southeastern Utah, as, “Bush’s last gift to the oil and gas industry”. Like many of us who treasure these areas for their natural beauty, spiritual power, and as simply a place to escape, DeChristopher was having a difficult time choking down the reality that oil wells may soon be popping up in the sacred red rock country. Beyond the destruction of the natural beauty the leases, if developed, threaten the fragile ecosystems of the Colorado Plateau as well.

According to Democracy Now! and other sources, the BLM had failed to even analyze the environmental impact on water and air of around 2,300 wells that have popped up since 2004, and had not come any closer to assessing the impact of the estimated 6,300 wells that were written into the current land auction plan. One of the greatest threats comes in developing land for oil, gas, and uranium exploration around the banks of the once mighty, now tamed, Colorado River. The Colorado River which, according to High Country News, “powers homes for 3 million people, nourishes 15 percent of the nation’s crops and provides drinking water to one in 12 Americans,” is now threatened by, “a rush to develop”.

In response to this unjustified destruction of wild lands DeChristopher left his University of Utah class after finishing a final exam and ran down to the BLM auction with the intent of protesting the sales. However, upon arriving DeChristopher realized that he had to do more. In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune he stated, “I decided I could be much more effective by an act of civil disobedience…There comes a time to take a stand. What the environmental movement has been doing for the past 20 years hasn’t worked…its time for a conflict. There’s a lot at stake.”

So instead of walking the protest lines, as he had done so many times before, DeChristopher decided to take more direct action and really throw a wrench into the works. He posed as a self-represented bidder and registered with the BLM to enter to the auction. After making it inside he mustered up the courage and began to bid on parcels of land. DeChristopher began to buy up numerous parcels, and the ones he didn’t win he drove the price up on; some leases were raised as much as $500,000 dollars before being purchased by legitimate oil and gas buyers. Before federal agents and auction officials caught on to what was happening DeChristopher had purchased 22,000 acres of public land including areas in Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument.

DeChristopher was hauled off by federal agents and questioned about his intent and actions. According to an interview with DeChristopher, by Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!, while in custody he explained to the feds, “I was very clear about what I was doing and why I was doing it. I told them all my motivations and why the environmental movement, as it’s been, and myself included, hasn’t been effective and why I felt it was necessary to take more drastic actions.” In a surprise turn of events Patrick Shea, former director of the BLM, offered to represent DeChristopher’s legal team, and to do so free of charge. Currently no charges have been filed against DeChristopher and a flood of donations by supportive citizens dedicated to protecting these wild lands has provided enough money (around $45,000) to allow DeChristopher to make the first payment on the land he purchased. In addition, on January 17th, Federal Judge Ricardo M. Urbina sided with conservation groups and their request to block the lease sales citing that, “development of energy resources…is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment.” This will hopefully allow the new Administration to review the leases and their consequences.

This is a huge victory for conservation groups, and eco-defenders of all walks. I know many, myself included, that have spent countless hours walking the canyons, running the rivers, and losing ourselves in the beauty of the red rock country. The Utah wilderness is truly a magical and sacred place. For us wild Four Corner folk this is simply a place we cannot afford to lose, especially to the wanton destruction of irresponsible industrial development. Thankfully people like DeChristopher weren’t willing to let these areas slip without a fight. In my opinion, this is the spirit of resistance we need to bring into 2009. Let us make a new years resolution to foster in ourselves a revived sense of resistance to the atrocities that face our world, both social and ecological. The hour is upon us, and there is no time to wait—the natural world is hurting and we must find it in ourselves to relieve the pain.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Issue #1 Pre-Release

We’re having resolution problems (with the text, but not the images for some reason) when doing the lay-out for printing, which was going to be on 11×17 inch paper, folded to be 8.5×11.

Click here to download the PDF in straight order, whereas in the final print version the articles where broken up and continued towards the end.

I’m trying to get this file uploaded to ZineLibrary.info but for some reason it won’t load it right now.

http://www.mediafire.com/?xaym2mjfzni

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Local History of Eco-Defense: Tamarron Resort Construction Attacked by Eco-Saboteurs

From WilderPress! Issue #1

Editor’s Note: While there is a long history of radical environmentalism, eco-defense, and direct action in the greater Southwest area, as residents of Durango, it is easy to forget that our own community has a long history of environmental defense. WilderPress! will thus be bringing you a series of short articles detailing the often-forgotten or intentionally buried and ignored history of eco-defense in Durango and the surrounding area. This is the first article in that series. If you have suggestions for future articles for the series, email your ideas to the WilderPress! Editorial Collective.

On July 26th, 2005, an article appeared in The Durango Herald entitled “Vandals Target Resort Construction.” Now called The Glacier Club, Tamarron Resort is located between Durango and Purgatory (aka the abomination known as “Durango Mountain Resort”). Jesse Harlan Alderman reported for The Herald that an “estimated $100,000 worth of equipment was vandalized.” Lt. Dan Bender of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office reported that the vandal or vandals, as Alderman wrote, “slashed truck tires and shot out windows on nine vehicles, cut fuel pump lines and defaced other property.” The equipment belonged to Durango contractor Rathjen Construction and Asphalt Paving Co. The Herald reported:

“We don’t know whether it was an ex-employee or one of these ‘Earth First’ people,” said company owner Bob Rathjen. “They really did know how to sabotage the place.” Late July 19, at least one person broke into the resort and trashed four separate construction sites, Bender said. Property on County Road 200 near Rockwood was also destroyed. The vandal attacked tires and windows and shot vehicles with a pellet gun, he said. Among the heavy equipment wrecked were Hitachi and Cat BL excavators and three dump trucks, Rathjen said. The vandalism forced the company to halt construction for a day and a half, he said.

The Herald also reported that Tamarron had recently added nine holes to its golf course, and was under an expansion plan that included the construction of large vacation homes on no less than 350 new lots. As The Herald reported:

“Rathjen suggested that the vandalism could be the work of environmentalists or an anti-development group. The company has been targeted in the past, he said. “We’ve had some minor things that we felt was the work of environmentalists,” he said.

Though Tamarron at the time only stationed security guards at its entrance, The Herald reported that Rathjen planned to hire additional night watchmen, adding to the overall cost of the expansion and cutting into the overall profit margin. If one of the fundamental aims of such actions is to inflict economic damage, this action, though successful in inflicting financial damage, ultimately failed in scale and scope in shutting the expansion project down. Much of the expansion planned for Tamarron, now called The Glacier Club, has been completed, and more is on the way. The action of July 2005 was a start, and a good start, but in order for such campaigns of economic sabotage to be successful, they must be sustained or at least more extensive in scale and scope.

Numerous autonomous strikes such as these can, however, have the potential to slow and in many cases stop the systematic destruction of the natural world. They can also serve as propaganda of the deed, inspiring and encouraging others to action. It is not necessary for each and every individual eco-defender to inflict extensive damage, for if small acts of sabotage are numerous and frequent enough, the damage will be extensive indeed.

Be careful, stay safe, plan well, and work only with those you know and trust, preferably in small groups of threes or fours. Never speak of actions to those who are not directly involved, even if you trust them.

Next in the local historiography series: an exclusive interview with one of the “Sandbench 12,” who were arrested while occupying a Forest Service office in Pagosa Springs to protest the Sandbench timber sale. Around 60 people participated in the occupation, and solidarity demonstrations took place outside the hearings.

Green Scare: FBI Hunts for ELF/ALF Suspects in Durango, CO

From WilderPress! Issue #1

Upon returning to classes from Thanksgiving break on December 1, 2008, students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado were surprised to discover FBI wanted posters posted on campus. After photographing and filming the flyers for historical and referential purposes, a group of anonymous disgruntled students converged, discussed the situation, and proceeded to remove the offending witch-hunt propaganda from at least one location.

The FBI wanted posters were for four individuals from known Green Scare cases—two females, ages 34 & 35, and two males, ages 29 & 41—whose listed charges include “Conspiracy to Commit Arson,” “Conspiracy to Commit Arson of United States Government Property and of Property Used in Interstate Commerce,” “Arson of Property Used in Interstate Commerce,” “Conspiracy to Destroy an Energy Facility,” “Conspiracy to Commit Arson and Destruction of an Energy Facility,” “Destruction of an Energy Facility,” “Arson of a Building,” “Attempted Arson of a Building,” “Arson of a Government Building,” “Use and Carrying of a Destructive Device During and In Relation to a Crime of Violence,” “Making Unregistered Destructive Devices,” and “Arson of a Vehicle.” (While their names are well known, we will not reprint them here, so as to not aid the agents of state oppression in their aim of repressing dissent and resistance.)

The listed actions the individuals are wanted for alleged involvement in date back to 1996 and include actions in Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, and Wyoming, including the May 21, 2001 University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture fire in Seattle, Washington, the simultaneous fire that destroyed several buildings and vehicles in Susanville, California (both claimed by the Earth Liberation Front), the October 15, 2001 arson and attempted animal liberation at the Litchfield Wild Horse and Burro Corral (also in Susanville, CA, and claimed by the Animal Liberation Front). The Grand Juries dealing with the Green Scare cases filed their indictments against the suspects on January 19, 2006 in Eugene, Oregon, on April 6, 2006 in Sacramento, California, and on May 17, 2006 in Seattle, Washington.

What were these posters doing on campus? What is the FBI doing looking for these suspects in Durango? Or were these wanted posters simply printed off the internet and posted by someone, perhaps in the school administration, who felt the need to exceed their job description and actually perform the role of the repressive apparatus of the State? Unfortunately, the Durango community may never know.

If similar wanted posters are found elsewhere, please report them to WilderPress! and your local Indymedia. Remember: never talk to police or the FBI.

For more information on the Green Scare, check out www.greenscare.org and www.greenisthenewred.com.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Jeffrey Free Luers: Taking Power


—By Jeffrey Free Luers – January 13, 2009

Alongside protecting the wild and fostering respect for our planet, one of the tenets of this movement is creating a sustainable future for our communities. In doing so, we must develop communities that have the ability to provide food, water, sanitation, resources and energy in a decentralized and autonomous manner.

We use energy everyday. It is easy to dismiss our use of electricity with romantic notions of primitivism or dismantling the capitalist system by dismantling the electric grid. But, these thoughts do not reflect the reality that over a third of all energy use in this country is residential.

Residential buildings alone consume 35% of all electricity in the U.S.(1). Of that, water heaters account for 15-30% of a households total energy consumption (2). Then there is lighting, computers, and appliances that consume energy even when not in use.

Even if people were willing to stop using computers and the internet, willing to stop taking hot showers, or cooking on a stove, and willing to start washing clothes by hand – something I highly doubt, considering dedicated and hardline radicals have failed to make these changes – we would still need a source of energy.

Consider this, if people did not have gas or electricity to cook with, the world would be forced to resort to cooking fires. If you think that’s better than using electricity, imagine the entire city of Los Angeles cooking with fire 3 meals a day, releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and particulate matter into the air. Not to mention the havoc and destruction the consumption of fire wood would have on the Angeles National Forest and other forested areas. And what about other community necessities that need electricity to function like hospitals?

As a movement we made mistakes romanticizing militant direct action without developing a structure to support prisoners and militant actions. We paid for that mistake with long prison sentences and traitors in our ranks. If we fail to develop a localized sustainable energy source, our failure could cost human lives.

In developed countries such as the U.S., solar power, though expensive, represents one of the greenest alternative energy sources. In fact, by covering an area 291×291 square miles with solar cells, we could supply all of the world’s present energy needs (3). That represents just 0.15% of the Earth’s land mass. Because of the versatility of photovoltaic cells, solar collection can be as simple as wiring buildings and houses for solar power with excess power being fed back into the community.

Again, while individual cost is prohibitive, corporations and local governments can be pressured to help fund solar conversion. Especially if they realize that doing so can save their community millions of dollars a year and put them on the path to energy self-reliance.

Likewise, wind power has the potential to drastically reduce CO2 emissions. In order to generate the same amount of electricity as a single megawatt wind turbine for 20 years, 26,000 tons of coal or 87,000 barrels of oil would have to be burned (4). A single one megawatt wind turbine displaces 2,000 tons of CO2 each year (based on current average U.S. utility mix) (5).

Moreover, wind power is a relatively cheap source of do it yourself electricity. While a fair amount of mechanical skill and knowledge of electrical systems is required to build a turbine, small scale turbines can be designed from recycled bicycle parts and neodymium magnets scavenged from computer hard drives for under $50 (6). Like photovoltaic systems, wind turbines can be attached to buildings or homes. They can also be placed in community gardens or other accessible areas.

In areas where wind or solar are not an option, electricity may be produced from biomass. Unfortunately, biomass can be a source of severe air pollution if not processed carefully. However, an area of promise is methane digester systems that break down animal or human waste into useable methane – a natural byproduct of decomposition. While methane is a greenhouse gas 20-times more potent than CO2, when it is burned to create electricity it breaks down into CO2 in levels lower than coal.

While methane’s release of CO2 is less than desired, through the natural breakdown of waste, methane would be produced and released. By harnessing this methane for electricity it can then broken down into a less potent greenhouse gas. The use of biomass may therefore be an effective and environmentally friendly way of treating raw sewage as opposed to the water intensive method currently used.

By failing to work toward alternative energy methods in our communities we are virtually guaranteeing the continued use of fossil fuels and rising global temperature. We also continue to allow energy giants to make decisions for us.

Aside from initial investments and hard work, solar, wind and biomass energy is free. Governments do not control the sun, wind, or how much we shit. While some may argue that embracing alternative energy is a compromise that we shouldn’t make, these same people continue to use electricity. By not developing alternative energy in our own backyards, we are just allowing energy giants to conduct business as usual.

Certainly, we need to reduce our use of energy. The best way to do that is to stop using appliances we don?t need, and unplug the ones we do when we aren’t using them. But, like it or not, since humans first used fire, we haven’t stopped – electricity is an extension of that. The sort of thing we can do is to create the cleanest, safest, sustainable, local applications of electricity production as possible. We, literally, need to take power out of government and corporate hands and put it in our own.

Citations:


(1) U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Building Technology and Community Programs. RTS Core Databook. U.S. Dept. of Energy, 2000. Charts I. 1.2 and I. 1.3.


(2) David Johnston and Scott Gibson, Green From the Ground Up. The Taunton Press. 2008. Pg. 156.


(3) Bjorn Lomborg. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pg. 131.


(4) and (5) David Johnston and Kim Master, Green Remodeling: Changing the World One Room at a Time. New Society Publishers. 2004. Pg. 85.


(6) Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew, Toolbox for Sustainable City Living. South End Press. 2008. Pg. 163.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Eco-Anarchist Sabotage in Mexico City

During the week of Tuesday the 25th to Friday the 28th of November, the following sabotages took place:

—Half a dozen Molotov cocktails were thrown at installations of the tren férreo (metro rail) in Mexico City, causing damage to roads, electricity poles and walls of facilities.

—Incendiary sabotage against a ‘control box of telephone lines,’ property of Telmex; the box exploded and hundreds of lines were left unusable, 7 public telephones also owned by Telmex were sabotaged leaving them unusable, 1 public phone burned.

—In the early hours of the last day, a ‘Banamex’ bank was sabotaged, leaving the ATM unusable, thanks to the abolitionist fire of a Molotov.

We claim these actions as a form of ‘protest’ against the construction of a new rail line (line 12), in Mexico City (D.F.) and Mexico State; already because of its construction many trees were cut down, entire families evicted and land expropriated with large hectares of green areas subsequently deforested.

At the same time we claim these acts in ‘solidarity’ with the anarchist prisoners in France who were held after investigations into the sabotage of high-speed train lines. (mainstream media report)

Our slogan has changed, we do not like conformism, now we say: ‘if they touch one… all respond.’

Revolutionary solidarity is manifested in the streets, attacking in a direct way those responsible for the imprisonment of our comrades, for the destruction of the planet and of the killing of animals.

Revolutionary solidarity is manifested in the form of rage and action.

How beautiful it is to see revenge of the exploited and the oppressors squeezed!

How beautiful is the fire that frees!

How beautiful is the abolitionist fire of the anti-authoritarians!

No to metro line 12!

Stop the deforestation and the displacement of entire families!

For every eviction or abuse of power… fire in the streets!

We claim these actions as:

Eco-anarchist cell for direct attack….

Mexico… November 28, 2008

We are not the vanguard… it is only strategy!”

Spanish:


“Durante la semana del martes 25 al viernes 28 del presente noviembre, se realizaron los siguientes sabotajes:

—Se arrojaron media docena de cocteles molotov contra instalaciones del tren férreo (metro), en mexico d.f., causando daños en las vías, postes eléctricos y muros de dicha instalación.

—Sabotaje incendiario contra una “caja de control de líneas telefónicas” propiedad de Telmex, la caja exploto y se dejaron inutilizables cientos de líneas, 7 teléfonos públicos también propiedad de Telmex fueron saboteados dejándoles inutilizables, 1 teléfono publico quemado.

—Por la madrugada del ultimo día se saboteo un banco tipo “Banamex”, dejando inutilizable el cajero automático, gracias al fuego abolicionista de una molotov.

Estas acciones las reivindicamos como forma de “protesta” contra la construcción de una nueva línea de metro (la línea 12), en mexico d.f. y el estado de mexico, ya que para su construcción se están talando muchos arboles, desalojando a familias enteras, y expropiando predios con grandes hectáreas de aéreas verdes para posteriormente deforestarlas.

Al mismo tiempo reivindicamos estos actos como “solidarios” con lxs anarquistas presxs en Francia tras las investigaciones sobre los sabotajes a las líneas del tren de alta velocidad.

Nuestra consigna ha cambiado, no nos gustan los conformismos, ahora nosotrxs decimos: “si tocan a unx…todxs respondemos”.

La solidaridad revolucionaria es la que se manifiesta en las calles, atacando de manera directa a lxs responsables del encarcelamiento de nuestrxs compañerxs, de la destrucción del planeta y del asesinato de animales. La solidaridad revolucionaria es la que se manifiesta en forma de ravia y acción.

Que hermoso es mirar la venganza de lxs explotadxs y oprimidxs contra lxs opresorxs!!!

Que hermoso es el fuego que libera!!!

Que hermoso es el fuego abolicionista de lxs anti-autoritarixs!!!

¡No a la línea 12 del metro!!!

¡Alto a la deforestación y al desalojo de familias enteras!!!

¡Por cada desalojo o abuso del poder…fuego en las calles!!!

Reivindicamos estas acciones como:

Celula eco-anarquista por el ataque directo….

Mexico …28 de noviembre 2008-11-29

No somos la vanguardia…solo es estrategia!!!

Burn the Rich! Eco-Arsonists Torch Home of Syncrude President & CEO Jim Carter



This Edmonton house belonging to former Syncrude president Jim Carter was destroyed by a fire that police said was deliberately set on Saturday night. (CBC)

From our comrades at Bombs & Shields:

Edmonton, Canada – The luxury home of former Syncrude president and CEO Jim Carter was burned down by an arsonist Saturday night. Investigators believe that environmental concerns may have been the motive. The building was struck by two molotov cocktails and was quickly consumed by flames, before firefighters had a chance to control the blaze. Damages were estimated at $850,000. Carter—who has ties to the oil and gas industry—was out, as were his family members, at the time of the incident which took place at approximately 8:15 PM. No one was injured fighting the fire.

Former Syncrude president and CEO Jim Carter speaks to reporters Monday near the charred remains of his Edmonton home. (CBC)

Former Syncrude executive arson target:

From CTV Calgary

Investigators say a home that was gutted by a massive blaze Saturday evening in Edmonton was deliberately set on fire, and some neighbours suspect the homeowner was being targeted because of his ties to the oil and gas industry.

[end excerpt]

click here to read more » » »

Arson blamed as former oilsands executive’s home destroyed:

From CBC Canada

The fire that destroyed the home of a former oilsands company executive on Saturday night was caused by Molotov cocktails, Edmonton police said Monday.

Nobody was in the home owned by former Syncrude president and chief operating officer Jim Carter, who retired in 2007.

[end excerpt]

click here to read more » » »

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

New Underground Eco Publication: WilderPress! - Call for Submissions



This is the first communiqué by WilderPress!, a new homegrown, grassroots, underground publication dedicated to defending the Earth and all things wild. This is a call to action in the name of the natural world we so deeply cherish and in defense of a world that is under attack…

The environment is in peril. The ecological chaos caused by human civilization is taking its toll on the planet and its inhabitants. The time has come for a change in philosophy and a change in the way we swing our allegorical axe. The feeling is there…it is penetrating…it is known by almost all: from grassroots environmentalists to the corporate hacks that pillage the land for all it is worth—we all know the importance of the natural world. However, some choose to look the other way. We cannot expect this planet to sustain human civilization for much longer. We cannot expect the Earth to forever withstand our enslavement and exploitation of the land and the millions of other species with whom we share this home we call Earth. The time has come to raise our voice in defense of the natural world, in defense of the plants and animals, in defense of the rivers and mountains…the canyons and alpine meadows. The time has come to raise our voice in the defense of the environment, and in defense of our mother—our home, and the only one we have. The health of the land, the water, and the air lies in our hands and you would be hard pressed to find another organism on this planet that bites the hand that feeds as painfully hard as we bite our own.

Industrial civilization is systematically destroying and poisoning the environment upon which human beings and all other living things depend. We are currently causing, and in the midst of, the largest and most rapid mass extinction and collapse of biodiversity that the planet has ever seen. Every living system on the planet is currently in decline. We have fundamentally altered the chemical and molecular composition of the oceans, soil, and atmosphere of the entire planet. Something must be done. Inaction in the face of this culture of death (and our status as beneficiaries of exploitation) is tantamount to complicity with it. The responsibility is ours and ours alone… We have the ability, and hopefully the heart and mind, to reverse the ways of the past and enter the 21st century with a different mindset: a mindset that supports the environment and its health, and one that in turn supports the health of humans and the other organisms that share our fate should we choose to continue down our current path. To make this happen we need more talking, more arguing, and most importantly more doing. That is the point of all this: a place where people can talk, and a place where people can act. The more we do so, the better the ideas, and the more effective the solutions. For the first time in human history, we face a problem that challenges every man, woman and child on this planet. No longer does economic status, religious affiliation, political standing, ethnic background or geographic location determine where we stand. We are all living beings, and we all need a healthy Earth in order to survive. Everyone is affected equally by the degradation of the environment, and everyone will pay the price should we choose to continue… This is truly the greatest challenge in human history. However, at the same time, never has an opportunity for humans to shine been so great. We have the chance, right now, to reverse or at least minimize the affects of past ignorance and abuse towards the land. How will you choose to act? Not only do we have the chance, we have the responsibility.

We at WilderPress! can think of nothing more important than protecting the natural world—the earth that gave us birth, and has since raised us. Our blood and flesh is a product of nature and someday our cold, dead bodies will return to the soil, to the rivers, the canyons and the mountains we so deeply treasure, to become food so that others may live. This is the greatest revolution of our time. We cannot let the fate of the natural world come down to the ignorance of our choices, the careless actions of a few greed filled corporations, and the money hungry pockets of a few ill-motivated men and women. It is time to stand up as a people in defense of the environment. Many have been fighting this battle for a long time (and we do not fear to call it a battle, for that is what it is), and for others, environmental activism and eco-defense are totally new. To you we say: What better place to start than here? What a better time than now? We have the ability to make conscious decisions in favor of the Earth, the plants, the animals—in favor of the great rivers and greater mountains. We have the ability to make these decisions outside of our own needs and wants; to be able to understand the intrinsic value of nature, the value of wild places and wild people in and of themselves, and the benefits this understanding can provide to us. This enlightenment would be the greatest Renaissance of our time.

Environmentalism is about saving our home—the only one we have—at whatever cost, and by any means necessary. It’s about survival, pride and justice: survival of our species, survival of the natural world; pride for ourselves and our decisions: what we have overcome, what we have yet to overcome; and justice for those who have no voices with which to speak. It’s about knowing that we are better and smarter than this; that we evolved into the thinkers and actors we are for a reason; that we aren’t ignorant enough to continue destroying—and allowing to be destroyed—our habitat, and the habitat of others.

If you don’t think this discussion involves you, think again… Everyone is an environmentalist, for we all need the environment. We all breathe the same air, drink the same water, and sustain ourselves from the same soil. We are amidst a great struggle of two worlds that used to be one. We need to find in ourselves the desire and ability to return to a mutual relationship with the natural world, and be a part of what we once were: responsible members of a diverse and interconnected community of living beings. We drastically need a reinterpretation of the way we live, think, and act. As we begin the pages of a new century, let us put to rest the mistakes we have made—let us look back on our actions and wonder, truly, “What were we thinking?” We must take a moment to simply breath and remember that not a hundred years ago we lived simpler and richer lives. Wilderness and the natural world are just as important to life as it is for a place to play. It is a place to take your kids, as our parents took us, raised on their shoulders—a place where the clock can’t tame your life, your job can’t destroy the sunset, and a place where the forces of man seem minuscule in comparison.

We need wilderness for more reasons than we stand to list…for beauty, for a place to live, a calm place to die, for us, for our children, for our sanity, for the knowledge that we can do better, that we have restraint in our actions. The wild Earth sustains us, and gives us life. We need wilderness for itself, so that someday our kids don’t have to learn about these places in a book. We literally depend on it for our very existence. Most importantly, the natural world itself is inherently valuable, and needs to exist for its own sake, independent of human utility. Let us vow to take the responsibility to change the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat the environment, for as much as we may like to think them separate, they are very much together. We are creatures of this Earth. Let us vow to take the time every day to change something about the way we live, the way we treat others, and the way we treat the land. Let us vow to never let our children use the word wilderness in the past tense…

The time has come to rise up in defense of Mother Earth, in resistance against those who are willfully enslaving and destroying the natural world, and in solidarity with those who know humans cannot continue on our current path of destruction. We must reclaim our place as responsible members within the greater community of living beings upon this planet, and act accordingly. This means taking action against the systematic ecocide perpetrated by industrial civilization and resisting the destruction of the Earth by any means necessary. The future of all life on Earth—human and non-human alike—depends on a healthy land base. The sooner the destruction is stopped, the better. Inaction is complicity. Complicity is abhorrent. We must come together in the name of something greater than ourselves. For our children, and our children’s children… The time to resist has come… Join us.

We are currently seeking submissions for the first issue of WilderPress!, scheduled to go to press in February. We are looking for articles written by other wild folks dedicated to protecting this planet. We at the WilderPress! Editorial Collective recognize and praise all forms of environmental protection, from direct action to education, from eco-defense to legislation. Please help by sharing your stories. To submit articles please email them to WilderPress[at]hushmail[dot]com. You may remain anonymous if you wish.

Carry on…and remember No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!