by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 5, 2013 | Alienation & Mental Health, Strategy & Analysis
By Vincent Kelley / One Struggle
I recently saw an Aquafina® bottle sitting on a table at my workplace. Its label read: “New! ECO-FINA Bottle™, 50% less plastic (*on average vs. 2002 bottle).” To start, it is ridiculous that PepsiCo, the producer of the Aquafina® brand, would lay any claim to social consciousness by offering a “greener” choice than its competitors. Pepsi drains aquifers in India [1], knowingly includes carcinogenic coloring in its soft drinks [2], and adopts racist hiring practices [3], just to name a few of the corporation’s psychopathic behaviors. This psychopathology, of course, is not unique to Pepsi—it is the modus operandi of the corporation itself as a legal-economic entity. [4]
But there is something else illustrated by the ECO-FINA water bottle that is common not only to corporations in the monopoly stage of capitalism [5], but to industrial civilization as a whole. Namely, the fabrication of meaningless choices while meaningful choices are systematically eliminated. Furthermore, as meaningful choices are eliminated, the hegemonic elites craft a distorted narrative that frames the oppressed as the agents of choice who “chose” such elimination.
Some examples: When Western nations colonized the Americas, India, Africa, or any other exploited region of the globe, the colonized peoples “chose” to abandon their traditional cultures to be players in the arena of industrial capitalism; when a woman is prostituted by a man, she “chose” to be in the industry; when a homeless person is terrorized by police, he “chose” to slack off and be a burden to the rest of society and, therefore, deserves the terrorizing. Indeed, the oppressor is an expert at using his agency to create a false narrative of the agency of the oppressed in an effort to legitimize his oppressing.
This agency narrative, if you will, is inculcated into every civilized human being by means of the patriarchal household, the coercive school system, the hierarchical workplace, and the stupefying television, lest any oppressed class should name the objective disparity in agency between the colonizer and the colonized, the pimp and the prostitute, or the homeless person and the cop, and act accordingly to dismantle the relationship of domination.
In the economic sphere, in order to convince us that we truly do have agency, the ruling class inundates us with a barrage of products to choose from: Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors, at least 31 brands of toothpaste to mitigate the damage done to our teeth and gums by the Baskin-Robbins ice cream, new and increasingly violent pornography for men to watch, and thousands of cosmetic products to distract women from—while often contributing to—their objectification in a pornified culture. And for those who are more “socially conscious” there is the ECO-FINA Bottle™, which allows you to love the ecocidal profits system twice as much as you consume half the amount of plastic!
This deluge of consumptive choices is exceedingly wasteful—US companies spent $131 billon on advertising in 2010 alone. [6] Additionally, when supported by “socially conscious” individuals, the valorization of choice by “progressive” consumers is inherently liberal—i.e. not radical—in its fixation on personal lifestyleism, as opposed to systemic change. And, most importantly, this barrage of choices in an economy that values production for production’s sake is disorienting and, as we will see, paradoxically coercive.
Sociologist of religion Peter Berger argues that, in modernity, individuals are forced to choose their religion or worldview. In the words of fellow sociologist Keith A. Roberts, “Berger did not view this situation as one in which the individual is free to choose. . . Rather, each person must choose; that is, one is coerced into doing so.” [7]
With an overabundance of worldviews in the religio-spiritual marketplace, from the range of conservative institutional religions to the assortment of New Age spiritualities of abstraction, the individual is acculturated into a milieu of unease and confusion vis-à-vis how to live in the world. While a plurality of choices is ostensibly appealing and progressive, it is ultimately coercive in the disorientation it engenders and the meaninglessness it obscures. [8]
Similarly, many other “choices” in our lives appear free and meaningful on the surface but are, in reality, unfree and meaningless.
Individually we can choose to fill up with regular, plus, or premium at the gas station, but we cannot choose to live in a society free from the destruction wrought by fossil fuel extraction and use. Individually we can choose whether to apply for a job at Walmart or one at McDonald’s, but we cannot choose to live in a society free from wage slavery. Individual men can choose not to abuse women, but women will never be able to choose a life without the threat or enactment of male pattern violence in a culture that extols institutionalized misogyny. Individual colonized peoples—more accurately the native elite, not the immiserated masses—can choose to work their way up in the bureaucracies of colonial or colonially-controlled governments, but they can never choose to return to the governing structures of their traditional culture. Individual students can choose whether or not to turn in their homework, but they cannot choose to escape from the coercion of compulsory schooling.
In other words, we have ample, but usually meaningless, choices within the confines of a culture that strives to obliterate the choices that are truly meaningful. As Noam Chomsky insightfully notes, “[t]he smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. . .” [9]
Analogously, we have numerous choices within the spectrum of civilization, but these choices are rendered meaningless in the face of what is excluded from the realm of choice. [10]
To drink clean water, to be free from the threat of violence, to have healthy biotic communities, to have a respite from the incessant war on the health and diversity of our emotional experience—none of these things were ever on the table for us to choose. Instead, we’re stuck with 31 flavors of ice cream and an ECO-FINA™ water bottle.
But there is something meaningful you can choose. You can choose to resist. If you are reading this article, you possess the social and cultural capital to resist industrial civilization in at least some way, be it by material support to radical movements, grassroots organizing, or decisive actions against the central loci of industrial civilization itself. Instead of falling into the trap of the oppressors’ agency narrative, the promise of gratification in a plethora of consumer goods, or the lighter conscience of “environmentally-friendly” personal lifestyle choices, strike at the nodes of power, and strike now. The impoverished colonial subject, the tortured prostituted woman, the terrorized homeless man, the nearly exterminated Cross River gorilla, the toxified oceans, and the ravaged forests—they can’t wait any longer. Now is the time to fight.
[1] India Resource Center and Community Resource Centre, “Deception with Purpose: Pepsico’s Water Claims in India,” India Resource Center (Nov. 30, 2011), at http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2011/pepsipositivewater.html.
[2] April M. Short, “Despite Claims to the Contrary, Pepsi Is Still Using Caramel Coloring Linked to Cancer,” AlterNet (July 4, 2013), at http://www.alternet.org/food/pepsis-caramel-coloring-probably-causes-cancer. , and adopts racist hiring practices3
[3] Sam Hananel, “Pepsi Beverages Pays $3.1M In Racial Bias Case,” The Huffington Post (Jan. 11, 2012).
[4] See, for example, Joel Bakan, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (New York: Free Press, 2004), 79, 135.
[5] See, for example, John Bellamy Foster, “The Epochal Crisis,” *Monthly Review *(2013, Volume 65, Issue 05, October)*, *at http://monthlyreview.org/2013/10/01/epochal-crisis
[6] Kim Bhasin, “The 12 Companies That Spend The Most on Advertising,” Business Insider (Jun. 22, 2011), at http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-that-spend-the-most-on-advertising-2011-6?op=1.
[7] Keith A. Roberts, Religion in Sociological Perspective (United States: SAGE Publications, 2011), 307.
[8] I am not arguing that someone born into a household with repressive religious doctrines and practices should, in an ideal world, stick with her original religion. I am simply contending that a religion can be good in itself in the absence of other choices for its adherents to compare it with. Indeed, a member of a sustainable and compassionate indigenous culture does not need a profusion of worldviews to compare to her own in order to know that she is living ethically.
[9] Noam Chomsky, The Common Good, (Odonian Press, 1998), 43.
[10] Those of us who are relatively privileged in the rich, Western capitalist countries, of course, have more meaningful choices than those in poor countries. That said, even our meaningful choices are drastically reduced the longer civilization exists.
"But there is something else illustrated by the ECO-FINA water bottle
that is common not only to corporations in the monopoly stage of
capitalism, but to industrial civilization as a whole."
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 1, 2013 | Gender, Male Violence, Women & Radical Feminism
By Kourtney Mitchell / Deep Green Resistance
The following speech was originally given at the Stop Porn Culture Conference at Wheelock College, Boston, in July 2013.
Hello everyone, my name is Kourtney Mitchell and I am a political activist and a member of the group Deep Green Resistance. We are a radical organization dedicated to social, political and environmental justice. As an organization we ally ourselves with indigenous communities, women, people of color and the poor. Our aim is to stop the destruction of the planet and the oppression of people and animals.
We are a relatively new organization just a couple of years old but we are growing and have numerous chapters with hundreds of activists around the world who are all dedicated to stopping the genocide of the planet.
So, I’ll offer just a brief background on my experience as a man with pro-feminist activism and educating men. I attended university and it was there that I first received academic and activist training in feminism and anti-violence through the peer education program on campus.
The peer education program consists of graduate students, faculty, and staff who train undergraduate volunteers. The training includes education about the widespread violence that women face and volunteers learn to give presentations to peers on rape, sexual assault, relationship violence, and feminism.
In turn, peers would then join our organizing efforts and events. This was the most profoundly significant and life changing time for me. To travel around the country raising awareness of violence against women, facilitating workshops, speak-outs, and protests was fulfilling, not to mention meaningful. The training threw me into another world, one in which violence and misogyny could no longer be ignored. Our advisors did a really comprehensive job of giving us an adequate scope of the problem, and creating a sense of urgency about these issues.
They helped facilitate the creation of a student culture based on the belief that it is possible to end violence against women, and knowing that possibility helped galvanize us to take action. Many of us went on to make this our life’s work.
My primary role in the campus activist community was recruiting and teaching men about pro-feminism and anti-violence. I helped lead the male ally program, which included a weekly discussion group, activism in the community, pro-feminist art and performance, and collaborations with other similar programs around the country.
I remember vividly the anxiety of pouring over every detail of presentations I would be giving to men, worrying if the way I presented concepts was too complicated or if men would shut down for the rest of the talk if I said something too complicated. I left some events feeling like no one was reachable, but I also walked away feeling really good about the successes which were accomplished.
Many men joined our organizations and became quite active – some because they just felt it was the right thing to do, but many more because of personal experiences and the experiences of their loved ones. Several men randomly wandered into our office and left planning to attend the next ally meeting, and sure enough did continue coming. This was just one of the many things that kept me optimistic about bringing more men to pro-feminist ideas and activism.
Unfortunately, the campus activist community was largely liberal and very much influenced by queer theory. Pornography was widely accepted, and a real revolution against the patriarchal order was more joked about than seriously considered. It wasn’t until I was introduced to the radical feminist perspective that I began to see the flaws of the liberal approach to pro-feminist education.
The liberal approach leaves out an important aspect of the violence men commit against women: that men hate women. It’s important to say that out loud and allow it to inform our actions. The dominant culture is insane. Its norms and values are pathological, and it socializes people into roles that encourage, even necessitate abuse and exploitation in order to fulfill accepted social roles.
The systems of rewards in this culture makes it appear as if the masculine identity and domination imperative are in our best interest, and dissent is seen as blasphemy — a violation of a sacred order.
And that sacred order is gender.
Masculinity fraternizes men into a veritable cult, one that requires violence and callousness in order to ensure the privileges of membership. The liberal approach has been able to raise the awareness of some men concerning the male violence, but it doesn’t challenge men on the mechanism of their oppression of women.
Just when I thought we could really get somewhere with bringing men into pro-feminist activism, the radical analysis gave me a hard dose of reality. I had always thought that if we could just get men to stop and think for a minute, to look around and see the world for what it really is, to get them to cultivate some empathy, then maybe we could start to see a reversal of toxic male culture. What I learned was that it’s hard enough to get men to consider feminism at all let alone to consider challenging their own behavior.
Once you start to get too radical, most men shut down or lash out against it. A few really do embrace it, and that’s something I hold on to—that there are some men out there who are thoughtful enough, and self-reflective enough, and honest enough to internalize the hard truths—but I also realize that most men will never be genuine allies. In fact, most so-called radical men have proven that they are not only incapable of understanding the radical feminist analysis of gender but that they will actively fight against women who espouse it.
The liberal approach to activism is disheartening because it constantly conditions activists to keep working to build an impossible mass movement, and it keeps people hopeful that this can actually happen if they keep spending time and resources on it.
We talk to men about the violence, give them all the evidence they need, and it’s still like trying to drill a hole through a brick wall. I could just as easily take a more passive approach when talking to men and cut them some slack because patriarchy and masculinity do cause men suffering, but last time I checked, emotionally and psychologically mature adults don’t ignore or gloss over the hard truths. Instead those hard truths need to be faced, and men have no excuse to stay passive on this.
Genuine alliance with women means prioritizing the goals of liberation as they are articulated by women and for women, no matter the insecurity and defensiveness men may feel.
As a radical political person of color, I do not accept surface-level activism against white supremacy and privilege. I see the impact of racist oppression in and on my community every single day, and it would be antithetical to my interest in the preservation of my people to avoid engaging with racist culture on a radical level. The oppression of my people needs to end by any means necessary, and this includes the end of the social construction of race.
I wrote an article critiquing white backlash against militant anti-racism, and of course I received still more white backlash. I believe that some white people will agree with me and I hope this is true for pro-feminist alliance with women as well.
Even at my young age I feel that I have spent a long time trying to find the right way to tell men the truth of the widespread violence that women face, but it seems as though the violence is only increasing. I can only imagine the road that some of the women here have walked and the frustration they feel in seeing the violence continue and grow exponentially.
It’s too much. The radical analysis is needed. The situation is urgent and getting worse by the day and I feel like it oftentimes takes so long to educate men and get them to do something, anything.
Some have said to me that I’m impatient. I say I’m fed up. So many men have sided with the violence of this culture and have made themselves the enemy of women and their genuine liberation. And this is pretty simple to me – if a man is an enemy of women, then he is an enemy of mine. Men need to be told, regardless of whether or not they want to hear it, that nothing less than the complete dismantling of patriarchy is acceptable, and men who don’t declare their allegiance to women have sided with the oppressors and they should be treated as such.
Men must try and understand what it takes to become real allies – constant self-critique, checking our privilege, and becoming mindful and aware of when our socialization is causing us to behave in abusive ways. We need to deconstruct this socialized person we’ve been conditioned to become and discover who we are as human beings.
I’ve been told that ultimately men aren’t ready to make comprehensive personal and political changes and to dismantle male culture, and I say so what? It’s ridiculous to think how many men will reject the simple suggestion that they try to become decent human beings. You can’t argue with a person like that. Meanwhile, women are raped on public transportation while the driver looks on and does nothing. A girl is raped in class and the teacher does nothing about it. Women are locked in basements for a decade, or enslaved or beaten or killed. At what point do we as men admit that men hate women and want to harm them?
When do we as men prioritize the safety, integrity and autonomy of women and give men the ultimatum: either you’re with women or you’re against them.
If you want to look at this from the perspective of approaching men in a way that encourages them to engage with us, rather than shutting down and ignoring us, then I can understand that. Sometimes you need to meet people where they are so you can increase the chance of them actually listening and considering what you have to say. This is a long process and oftentimes it takes several intense conversations on these issues with the same men over a period of time to get it to click. Sadly, we don’t always have that kind of time, and most men wouldn’t take the time anyway.
I think it’s important to focus our efforts on constantly engaging and challenging men on their abuse and misogyny and demonstrating to men who insist on continuing that abuse that they will be met with resistance. We will put an end to their abuse using whatever means we have to. They are the ones who cannot be reasoned with, and force is the only language they understand.
A crucial aspect of genuine alliance with women is that it’s our responsibility to educate other men, not women’s responsibility. Saying it’s a women’s issue ignores the perpetrator. It is unfair to leave this work to women who daily endure the onslaught of patriarchal violence. Women have a right to organize away from men, and to demand that we take responsibility for our actions. No, most of us men did not ask for this kind of world. And no, most of us didn’t play an integral part in constructing it. But because we are socialized into it as members of the dominant class; because we are conditioned to use our genitals as weapons against women; and because we are rewarded for doing so, we must do the hard work of separating ourselves from this unfortunate set of affairs and confronting men who refuse to do the same. What do we value more—privilege or justice? Privilege may be comfortable for a while, maybe even for a long time, but eventually it results in the same kind of horrible state of affairs that the planet is currently enduring.
I have had some success presenting this issue to men in the following manner: what does it mean to live in a culture so oppressive to women that they have a good reason to hate us? What does it mean for us that every woman with whom we come into contact can legitimately consider us a potential rapist or batterer? Is this the kind of world we want to live in— a world in which every relationship we have with women is fraught with the anxiety of being perceived as violent simply for being a man? Personally, I do not want to live in this kind of world.
Men need to be given the radical perspective, or else we are simply training them to be ineffective in addressing the problem we claim to care so much about. Just as in radical environmentalism where we base strategy and tactics on the numbers we have so we can be most effective with those numbers, we should do the same with radical pro-feminist education of men. We leverage force against male supremacy and teach each other how to become more complete human beings, how to build loving and nurturing communities, and how to abandon the pathology central to our abuse. This work hasn’t ever been and won’t ever be easy, but it’s necessary and we have a planet and its community of life to save.
Time is short. We should not be prepared to accept any more of this violence. We have a responsibility to ourselves, our loved ones, and future generations to end the violence or die trying.
Thank you.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 8, 2013 | Repression at Home
By BBC News
Electrical supply problems at a National Security Agency data centre have delayed its opening by a year, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Power surges at the giant Utah centre had ruined equipment costing almost a million dollars, it said.
The technical problems had also led to lengthy investigations that had meant its opening date had been pushed back.
The Utah plant is one of three the NSA is building to boost its data gathering and surveillance capabilities.
Over the past 13 months, 10 separate electrical surges have occurred at the data centre in Bluffdale, Utah, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which is reported to have cost $1.4bn (£872m) to build.
Each surge had burnt out and wrecked about $100,000 worth of computers and other equipment, it said.
The Bluffdale facility is more than one million sq ft (93,000 sq m) in size and its power costs are expected to top $1m (£622,000) a month, according to the WSJ.
The NSA had been supposed to start using the data storage and analysis centre in October 2012, it said, but this had been delayed by the damage caused by the power surges and a six-month investigation into their cause.
The WSJ added it had seen technical documents indicating experts called in to find out the cause had rowed over whether the problem had been fixed.
It said civil contractors were confident the problem had been solved but a special US Army engineer investigation team had said the cause was “not yet sufficiently understood” to be sure that it would not happen again.
The amount of surveillance that the NSA carries out has come under scrutiny in recent months thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden.
He leaked documents allegedly detailing its activities including the Prism programme that garners data from web firms including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo.
In addition, the NSA has been found to be gathering data on phone calls made by US citizens.
From BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24443266
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 6, 2013 | Agriculture, Climate Change
By John Upton / Grist
When the USSR collapsed, the communal farming systems that helped feed the union’s citizens collapsed with it. Farmers abandoned 110 million acres of farmland and headed into the cities in search of work.
New research by European scientists has revealed the staggering climate benefits of that sweeping change in land use. According to the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, wild vegetation growing on former USSR farming lands has sucked up approximately 50 million tons of carbon every year since 1990.
New Scientist reports that’s equivalent to 10 percent of Russia’s yearly fossil fuel carbon emissions:
“Everything like this makes a difference,” says Jonathan Sanderman, a soil chemist at CSIRO Land and Water in Australia. “Ten per cent is quite a bit considering most nations are only committed to 5 per cent reduction targets. So by doing absolutely nothing — by having depressed their economy — they’ve achieved quite a bit.”
He says the abandoned farmland is probably the largest human-made carbon sink, but notes it came at the cost of enormous social and economic hardship.
Modelling the effect into the future, [study co-author Irina] Kurganova estimates that, since the land has remained uncultivated, another 261 million tonnes will be sequestered over the next 30 years. At this point, the landscape will reach equilibrium, with the same amount of carbon escaping into the atmosphere as is being taken up.
The finding is a stark reminder of how Earth does a bang-up job of soaking up carbon if we leave more of it undeveloped and un-farmed.
From Grist: http://grist.org/news/abandoned-russian-farmland-soaks-up-50-million-tons-of-carbon-every-year/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 4, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Ahni / Intercontinental Cry
Nearly 1,500 Indigenous Peoples from across Brazil on Wednesday occupied a central road in the federal capital Brasília known as the Esplanade of Ministries, paralyzing traffic in both directions.
A part of the National Indigenous Mobilization convened by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the protesters are trying to stop a legislative assault that threatens to severely undermine or extinguish Indigenous rights in the country.
As examined in “Indigenous April 2013: Declaration Of Indigenous National Mobilization In Defense Of Indigenous Territories,” this legislative assault consists of several bills and decrees, including:
Proposed Amendments to the Constitution (PECs) numbers 038/99, 215/00 and 237/13, Bill 1610/96, the bill for Complementary Law (PLP) 227/12, and the Portarias (ministerial orders) 419/11 and 7957/13.
- PEC 38 would give the Senate power to approve processes of demarcation of Indigenous lands, determining that “the demarcation of Indigenous lands or units of environmental conservation respect the maximum limit of 30% of the surface area of each state”;
- PEC 215 gives Congress exclusive authority to decide the boundaries of all Indigenous lands;
- PEC 237 permits the possession of Indigenous lands by rural producers;
- PLP 227 limits federal lands that can be used for demarcation;
- Portaria 419 intends to streamline the licensing of public projects by means of the reduction of Indigenous rights, of the rights of traditional communities and of the environment;
- Portaria 7957 creates the Environmental Operations Company of the National Force of Public Security to permit the use of military force against Indigenous Peoples who oppose the large-scale projects of the PAC (Program for Acceleration of Growth), especially hydroelectric dams;
- PL 1610, allows mining in Indigenous lands.
Prior to occupying the Esplanade of Ministries, the diverse group of protesters in Brasília, who represent more than one hundred ethnicities, attempted to enter the National Congress. The Indigenous Peoples were met with pepper spray.
During the confrontation, APIB reported that one Tupiniquim participant was wounded with a deep cut to the arm and was sent to the University of Brasília Hospital (HUB) for medical attention.
Rather than take the entire group of protesters on, government officials requested a meeting with a small committee of representatives.
There was no consensus among the leaders, says the APIB. Many declined the offer, “[insisting] that representatives of the government should come out of Congress and talk to all the Indigenous Peoples present.” However, a committee of 31 Indigenous leaders decided to meet with the acting President of the House, Andrew Vargas (PT-PR) to discuss PEC 215 and PLP 227.
At that point, “The Indigenous then decided to stop activity at the Axis Monument, above the Ministry of Justice. The car of government spokesman, congressman Candido Vaccarezza (of the Labor Party-PT of São Paulo), was stopped in the middle of the demonstration and Indigenous participants wrapped his car with toilet paper, and hung bills and coins on the windshield.”
APIB explains that “Vaccarezza is the chairman of the Joint Committee (House and Senate) of the proposed Supplementary Law Bill (PLP) 227, which deals with regulations to Article 6 of the Constitution, in relation to exceptions to the exclusive use of the Indigenous Peoples to their lands.”
At another point during the protest, “[four] large photos were the target of Indigenous arrows, one of President Dilma Rousseff, one of her chief of staff, Gleisi Hoffmann, and the other two, the president of the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA) and Senator Katia Abreu. Following a ritual dance around the photos, they stepped on them.”
From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/brazil-indigenous-peoples-occupy-esplanade-20268/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 3, 2013 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Obstruction & Occupation
By Redwood Nation Earth First!
Ellen Faulkner, 74, of Redwood Valley, pled no contest to five charges of infraction trespass for arrests she incurred in March, April, May and September this year while protesting the Caltrans bypass around Willits. Faulkner received 35 hours of community service, with no probation, fines, fees or stay away order. District attorney David Eyster had offered one year probation, a 20 yd. stay away plus $350 in costs.
Unlike activist/journalist Will Parish, who scaled and occupied a wick drain tower in June, shutting down operations on the work site for eleven days, Faulkner did not request that her infractions be raised to misdemeanors in order to exercise her right to a jury trial. Instead, she made a statement to the court explaining why she took the actions she did, including locking down to equipment, resupplying the tree sitters and supporting other activists by going to jail with them.
Faulkner, a nonviolence trainer, said she wanted to model nonviolent civil disobedience by breaking the smallest possible law to make her point. “I put my body in the way to stop an infinitely greater crime from happening: the destruction of the wetlands. None of the regulatory agencies are holding Caltrans accountable for their numerous egregious violations… they have guns and force, we have only our bodies”, Faulkner said. Judge Ann Moormann praised Faulkner’s “speaking from the heart” and recognized Faulkner’s belief that what she did was right.
Citing an Aug. 28 article in The Willits News headlined “ACE: Caltrans in “Serious Breach” of Permit”, Faulkner said “then they do nothing”. Caltrans has also received notices of violations from the State Water Quality Board. In September, they were stopped from hauling untested and possibly contaminated fill material from an old mill site when the County pulled its’ erroneously granted permit under threat of a law suit.
In a Sept. 13 letter Caltrans admitted to the Sherwood Valley Rancheria Pomo tribe that an extensive archeological site in the bypass route had been “disturbed” by being bulldozed, wick-drained and covered with three feet of soil. Tribal Chair, Mike Fitzgerald described the known site as “eviscerated” and said the tribe had requested protection of the sites but had received none.
