In this short video Andrea Dworkin answers the question: “is law is an appropriate tool for the protection and also the advancement of women?”
Well, what I feel about it is that we have to use what we’ve got and what we’ve got isn’t very much and we have to find some way to keep the rapists off the streets. There are different ways of doing it, law is only one way of doing it.
I myself favour violence, deeply. I favour it.
And the reason that I favour it is that the law isn’t working. And as long as the law isn’t working women who have been attacked or who are being attacked need to understand that they have a right to defend themselves against anyone who is attacking them.
Many people prefer the legal system, I don’t blame them for that, I wish it would work. It’s not working. We have another 50 years to try to get it to work. We have a woman (whose name I’m not remembering right now) who killed a paedophile, who raped her son. It was clear that he was going to be acquitted, so she shot him. In my view she did the right thing. I admire her for what she did.
So, I’m willing to sit down with my sisters and think of a dozen other things that we can do that are not terrible things to do, but we have to do something. We can’t do nothing.
Trinity writes about The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the seven ‘Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’ (SHAC 7) members who were originally charged with violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Trinity La Fey is clear in her writing: we all need to act as one to stop the destruction.
“People care about winning. They care about victory and that’s the most beautiful thing about the Huntington Life Sciences Campaign: we’re not here to tell you how to behave. What we’re here to convince you to do is to take the personal initiative to shut the fucking lab down.”
He knew how to write a speech. He went on to do time as a consequence of his advocacy for animal rights. The lab did not get shut down. It was bought out and he didn’t go down for a thing he had done, but for what he had said. He knows about commitment. He continues to speak.
His speech, however dangerous, terroristic, insidious or seditious it was deemed in a court of law, did not and could not end animal testing. The only thing that gave the surviving victims of that institution’s abuse half a fighting chance were the people who physically broke into the laboratory and removed them. Even then, at such a late stage, it is harm reduction, not amelioration or prevention. The elusive source of this process: the belief in the necessity of, or disregard for, or pleasure taken in this suffering, simply got better at becoming invisible.
Daniel Sloss, a comedian from Scotland recently performed:
“Don’t make the same mistake I did, which is just sitting back and being like, ‘well, I’m not part of the problem, therefore I must be part of the solution.’ ‘Cause that’s just not how this fuckin’ shit works. I believe and deep down I know, that most men are good. Of course we are. But when one in ten men are shit and the other nine do nothing, they might as well not fucking be there.”
He knows how to put on a show, but I don’t know if he is qualified to be the judge of goodness in man. I know for sure that I am not. My senses are my own. I must judge for myself always.
At the time of the SHAC 7’s trial, snuff films of human women were already in existence. While the jury was not allowed to see the snuff of a rhesus monkey that prompted the activists to so vociferously organize, the ACLU had long sided with pimps and pornographers, as they do today. They didn’t stand a chance. Not with so many humans mere demonic hosts for a Rabies of the Soul, or wetiko as Jack Forbes calls it.
People do care about winning, but victory is expensive. For those to whom winning means leaving a living planet where we found one, there will be a different price paid than for one to whom it means ruling atop a technocratic pornscape. Who can afford to pay what? What are our commitments?
On the edge of a river she loves, Jennifer Murnan once told me,
“There are a few simple rules and it is everyone’s job to enforce them.”
She knows that river. She knows the rules which are not ours to add or subtract, but to notice in time, as she has. What’s right and wrong are simple, clear things, the few big things: don’t torture; don’t take more than you need and never all; give thanks; give everything back.
It is not my job to judge for you what your senses are saying, or what the lab is for you, where you are. It is all of our jobs to shut the fucking lab down.
Trinity La Fey is a smith of many crafts, has been a small business creatrix since 2020; published author; appeared in protests since 2003, poetry performances since 2001; officiated public ceremony since 1999; and participated in theatrical performances since she could get people to sit still in front of her.
The most basic organizational unit is the affinity group. A group of fewer than a dozen people is a good compromise between groups too large to be socially functional, and too small to carry out important tasks. The activist’s affinity group has a mirror in the underground cell, and in the military squad. Groups this size are small enough for participatory decision making to take place, or in the case of a hierarchal group, for orders to be relayed quickly and easily.
Figure 8-2
The underground affinity group (Figure 8-2a, shown here with a distinct leader) has many benefits for the members. Members can specialize in different areas of expertise, pool their efforts, work together toward shared goals, and watch each others’ backs. The group can also offer social and emotional support that is much needed for people working underground. Because they do not have direct relationships with other movements or underground groups, they can be relatively secure. However, due to their close working relationships, if one member of the group is compromised, the entire affinity group is likely to be compromised. The more members are in the group, the more risk involved (and the more different relationships to deal with). Also because the affinity group is limited in size, it is limited in terms of the size of objectives it can go after, and their geographic range.
Aboveground affinity groups (Figure 8-2b) share many of the same clear benefits of a small-scale, deliberate community. However, they may rely more on outside relationships, both for friends and fellow activists. Members may also easily belong to more than one affinity group to follow their own interests and passions. This is not the case with underground groups—members must belong only to one affinity group or they are putting all groups at risk.
The obvious benefit of multiple overlapping aboveground groups is the formation of larger movements or “mesh” networks (Figure 8-3b). These larger, diverse groups are better able to get a lot done, although sometimes they can have coordination or unity problems if they grow beyond a certain size. In naturally forming social networks, each member of the group is likely to be only a few degrees of separation from any other person. This can be fantastic for sharing information or finding new contacts. However, for a group concerned about security issues, this type of organization is a disaster. If any individual were compromised, that person could easily compromise large numbers of people. Even if some members of the network can’t be compromised, the sheer number of connections between people makes it easy to just bypass the people who can’t be compromised. The kind of decentralized network that makes social networks so robust is a security nightmare.
Figure 8-3
Underground groups that want to bring larger numbers of people into the organization must take a different approach. A security-conscious underground network will largely consist of a number of different cells with limited connections to other cells (Figure 8-3a). One person in a cell would know all of the members in that cell, as well as a single member in another cell or two. This allows coordination and shared information between cells. This network is “compartmentalized.” Like all underground groups, it has a firewall between itself and the aboveground. But there are also different, internal firewalls between sections.
Such a network does have downsides. Having only a single link between cells is beneficial, in that if one cell is compromised, it is much more difficult to compromise other cells. However, the connection is also more brittle. If a “liaison” is removed from the network or loses communication for whatever reason, then the network may be broken up. A backup plan for regaining communication can reduce the damage from this, but increase the level of risk. Also, the nonhierarchal nature of this network means that choosing actions can be more difficult. The more cells are involved, the larger the number of people who must have critical information in order to make decisions. That said, these groups can be very effective and functional. The famous Underground Railroad was a decentralized underground network.
Figure 8.4
Some of these problems are addressed in both aboveground and underground groups through the use of a hierarchy. In underground hierarchies (Figure 8-4a), large numbers of cells can be connected and coordinated through branching, pyramidal structures. These types of groups have vastly greater potential than smaller networks. Their numbers make for increased risk, yes, but that increased risk can be reduced by the use of specialized counterintelligence cells within the network and wide-ranging coordinated attacks.
Aboveground hierarchies (Figure 8-4b) are quite familiar and common, in part because they are highly effective ways of coordinating large numbers of people to accomplish a specific objective. As shown, aboveground hierarchies facilitate many relationships between people in different parts of the hierarchy. This lack of compartmentalization might be good in terms of productivity, but not in terms of security.
There are very specific situations in which it may be acceptable to send information through an underground group’s firewall. The recruitment process necessarily involves communication with people outside the group. However, these people would not be active in aboveground movements, and, at least initially, they would only know one member of the organization in one cell. Of course, there are no direct relationships between people in the underground and aboveground groups.
In certain situations, one-way (and likely anonymous) communications may take place across the firewall. Informants who want to give information to the resistance network may pass on information to a member of an internal intelligence group. However, the intelligence group would not share information about identities or the network with those people. Information may also travel one-way in the opposite direction. The underground groups may want to send communiqués or other information to the media or press office. Of course, any communication across the firewall, even those thought anonymous, entails a certain small amount of risk. Therefore, the benefits must outweigh the risks.
All of the examples illustrated are simplified and generalized. Resistance groups in history have had a wide variety of internal structures based on these general templates. They often had to make a deliberate compromise between organizational security (which comes from loosely connected and decentralized cells) and organizational effectiveness (which comes from more densely connected and centralized cells).
This is an update regarding the chronology of events for the Old Growth Blockade which strives to protect the last old-growth temperate rainforests on Vancouver island, currently facing near-total eradication by the British Columbia government and logging companies.
The Rainforest Flying Squad launches the Bugaboo Creek blockade to prevent road building into the last ancient forests of the watershed.
Friday, December 11th, a group of Forest Protectors with the Rainforest Flying Squad have moved the Bugaboo Blockade south to block a road adjacent to the world famous Avatar Grove, to prevent road building crews from continued road building into the south side of the Bugaboo’s Ancient Rainforest in Camper Creek on Pacheedaht Territory.
This comes on the heels of the creation of the first Bugaboo Blockade on December 7, when the Rainforest Flying Squad prevented logging in high elevation old growth western red and yellow cedar forests. Shortly after the creation of that blockade the road building contractor moved their equipment from the north side of the Bugaboo’s Ancient Forest to the south side where another road has been approved into a magnificent stand of Ancient Trees. “The message is simple,” said one of the Squad, “we want no more logging, no more road building into the last of our ancient forests.” After following vehicles moved from the north side of the Bugaboo, and discovering the contractor intended to begin road building on the south side of the rainforest the squad decided to move camp, continuing to monitor the north side as they prevent road building into the southern part of the forest.
In the meantime another group of Protectors have now mobilized to protect valley bottom old growth forest south of Eden Grove in the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient forest. They have set up a blockade on the bridge leading to Big Lonely Doug, the iconic Douglas Fir tree that stands in an old growth clear-cut on Edinburgh Mountain. This is in response to an application submitted by Teal Jones that would allow for the construction of a logging road into valley bottom old growth forest south of Eden Grove.
The new Edinburgh Blockade will remain in place as long as it takes to prevent further fragmentation of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest. The barricades are holding strong at Fairy Creek and meanwhile the Bugaboo Squad will continue to block access and monitor both intrusions into the rainforest until snow pack eliminates the risk of road building into the Bugaboo Ancient Forest. The protesters expect road building crews to remove their equipment in the next few days, they say if the contractors move the equipment back to the north side of the old growth forest, they will be back and blockade there again.
The blockaders on both blockades are demanding;
That logging contractor Stone Pacific give up road building into old growth forests in TFL 46 and move their machinery to work on road networks targeting second growth.
That the Ministry of Forests decline the Teal Jones groups application for new road building on Edinburgh Mountain.
That the provincial government and Premier John Horgan immediately implement the recommendations of the OGSR and end all old growth logging across British Columbia
The government immediately shift all forestry operations to sustainable management of silvicultural land-base as a source of long-term employment in local and First Nations communities.
Until these demands are met, the Rainforest Flying Squad will continue to disrupt the timber industry in its attempts to log the last of our Ancient Temperate Rainforests.
The women of Kendeng set their feet in cement to stop a mine in their lands. This is their story.
This article was written by Febriana Firdaus on 13 November 2020 and published originally on Mongabay.
Across Indonesia, hundreds of communities are in conflict with companies seeking control of their resources. In some cases, the resistance has been led by women.
Journalist Febriana Firdaus traveled across the country to meet grassroots female activists and delve into the stories behind their struggles.
This article is part one of a series about her journey, which has also been made into a film, Our Mothers’ Land.
Serene, prosperous, fertile. These words come to mind as I stand at the top of a hill in Tegaldowo village, on the island of Java, in Indonesia, one Sunday evening in 2019. It is an idiom used to describe this giant island, with its rich soils, verdant rice paddies and teak forests. But the tranquility hides a more turbulent story.
Across Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, mass demonstrations have erupted. Some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) to the east, anger at decades of mistreatment of indigenous Papuans has spilled over into violence. In the capital, Jakarta, students are taking to the streets in their thousands, protesting against a raft of new laws many fear will erode civil liberties.
Among the most contentious features of the new legislation is concern that it will enable the government to criminalize farmers and activists fighting against extractive companies taking their land. Already, hundreds of communities are locked in simmering conflicts with firms that have logged their forests, mined their mountains, and transformed their farmland into plantations. Many of these people once hoped that the president, Joko Widodo, would tip the scales in the favor of the powerless.
But in the coming months those hopes will be dashed. By November 2020, the government will sign into effect sweeping new legislation that appears to entrench the power of oligarchs, and of the private firms responsible for damaging the nation’s environment, including its vast rainforests.
For many communities engaged in the fight to protect land rights and the environment, the hills in which I stand hold huge resonance.
It is not just a hill, but a karst: a limestone formation that undergirds the North Kendeng Mountains and stretches 180 kilometers (112 miles) east to west. The rock has been eroded over time to form a giant warren of underground caves and rivers, providing clean water to the people of the region throughout the year.
The Indigenous people of Kendeng consider the karst to be their Ibu Bumi — their Mother Earth. She nurtures and even breastfeeds the land, in their lore, allowing them to grow rice and other crops.
“Mother Earth has given, Mother Earth has been hurt, Mother Earth will seek justice,” sings Sukinah, a farmer who accompanies me as she patiently checks the corn in the field that surrounds us. She moves nimbly, dressed in slippers and a traditional Javanese blouse called a kebaya.
Fairy Creek Blockade: defending old growth forests on unceded Pacheedaht territory
by Reuben Garbanzo, on Lekwungen territory
Joshua Wright, is a seventeen year old film-maker from Olympia, Washington with an irrepressible passion for protecting the last remaining old-growth temperate rainforests; and has handy access to a state-of-the-art digital mapping program that allows him to track and monitor industrial logging activities in near-real time. In early August, this year, he gave heads up to Vancouver island grassroots forest activists to a road-building crew subcontracted to Surrey-based tenure-holder of TFL 46, Teal Jones, cresting the ridge into the old-growth Yellow Cedar headwaters of Ada’itsx/ Fairy Creek watershed, the last unlogged tributary of the San Juan River system, unceded Pacheedaht territory, near Port Renfrew.
Forest firefighter Will O’Connell surveyed the road-building operation with spell-binding drone footage that captured earth-moving machinery operating on dangerously steep terrain pushing into a watershed never before logged, with no current cutblocks approved, but nonetheless heightening the risk of logging plan approvals, once the investment of road infrastructure had been established. This bold expose of a logging road incursion into one of the last roadless places on southern Vancouver island rapidly spread on social media and in the midst of a pandemic, galvanized forest defenders into non-violent direct action.
On Sunday, August 9th, twenty ancient forest activists from all over the south island, including the nearby communities of Port Renfrew and Cowichan valley, gathered at Lizard Lake and decided to set up a road blockade above the clouds 1000 metres up a treacherous logging road on a steep ridge overlooking the Gordon river valley, on the western flank of Fairy creek, where road-building into the Fairy, was slated the next work day. Tents were set up under the giant bucket of a gargantuan excavator and a 10′ diameter cedar log round from an ancient tree felled in the Klanawa Valley, propped vertically on a plywood frame, was installed as a barricade centrepiece across the road. When the Stone Pacific road crew arrived in darkness at 5 am the next morning they were politely confronted by a dozen people putting on the morning coffee around a small fire on the road end, with the intention of protecting Fairy Creek from road incursion.
Two weeks later another blockade was set up to protect the watershed on its eastern flank and to stop clearcut logging in an area of contiguous ancient forest that is part of the 5100 acre Fairy Creek rainforest, much of which is already under Old-Growth Management and Wildlife Habitat Area designation.
Pop-up blockades disrupting business as usual in other remnant old-growth forest locales have also sent a message to government and industry that in a down-spiraling climate and biodiversity crisis, disruption to the status quo is to be expected until the government takes decisive action to protect what is left of these globally significant and irreplaceable forests. The objectives/demands of all these blockade actions is to protect the last 1-3% of low-elevation old-growth rainforests left standing on so-called Vancouver island.
The Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek blockades are now entering their fourth month with no logging or road-building behind the barricades and no injunctions or arrests. This blockade, now the longest land-based direct action campaign on this island in over two decades has evolved quickly into a decentralized grassroots direct action movement under the banner of oldgrowthblockade, aimed to stem the tide of the colossal destruction of the shocking equivalent of 32 soccer fields of old-growth forests per day on the island alone.
Winterized infrastructure has been built at the main Fairy Creek base Camp, 7 kilometres off the the Pacific Marine Rd. including wood-heated Elder and Indigenous Warriors’ tents, bear-proof kitchen arbour, tool shed and hot water shower and change room. Dozens of volunteers communicating via several online platforms have provided coordination and mobilized material support to the frontlines which have been steadily maintained by a gritty, dedicated crew of core forest defenders, young and not so young, mostly women, who provide daily logistical coordination, elder care, leadership, hosting and reconnaissance on the ground.
This settler-Indigenous blockade has been blessed with the support and wise leadership of Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones who has asked that the entire valley, part of his childhood stomping ground, be dedicated as an Indigenous Protected Area in honour of the victims of the smallpox epidemic. Pacheedaht Chief and council have not responded for or against the blockade. The area is in the electoral riding of Premier John Horgan who has himself yet to respond to the demands of the blockade to protect Fairy Creek rainforest and all remaining old-growth temperate rainforests on the island.
On September 29th, the blockade received a strong statement of support from the Union of British Columbia Chiefs (UBCIC) who issued a breakthrough resolution calling on the Province to implement all 14 recommendations of their Old-Growth Strategy Review report and for the immediate protection of key old-growth forest hotpsots including Fairy Creek. Most significantly, their resolution called for government to assume responsibility in invesment in supporting First Nations to break free from the economic dependency on the old-growth forest destruction of their land-base, a major policy piece in the transition away from the destructive legacy of old-growth logging, once and for all.
August 1st : Discovery of Stone Pacific ( subcontracting to Teal Jones) road construction cresting the Ridge into the unlogged Fairy Creek headwaters
August 9: Grassroots activists from across Vancouver island meet at Lizard Lake and decide to erect an emergency logging road blockade at the end of Reid mainline, on a high ridge on the western side of Fairy Creek headwater, to prevent cutting, bulldozing and blasting activity into Fairy Creek the very next day. Notice is sent to Pacheedhat Chief and Council and Elder Bill Jones of setter-activist intentions to block road-building operations on their unceded territory.
August 10:Ridge camp blockade turns away Stone Pacific road and falling crews. Call out to request people to attend camp to defend against logging road construction into the last unlogged watershed in the San Juan River system.
August 17th: 2nd blockade at River Camp is established at another road access point into Fairy Creek along Granite mainline in the Renfrew Creek watershed, on the east side of Fairy Creek.
August 24th: a temporary, pop-up blockade is set up on Braden Mainline aimed at halting road-building and logging of old-growth forests on Edinburgh mountain, across from Fairy Creek in the San Juan river basin.
August 31st: Ridge camp blockade is moved 7kms down the road to a new blockade location aimed at halting road-construction into Fairy Creek and logging of contiguous old-growth forest adjacent to the Fairy Creek watershed.
September 4: Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones releases an official letter of invitation to Indigenous and non-Indigenous forest defenders to unite on the territory to defend the old-growth rainforests on his ancestral lands. An Elder’s tent is built at River Camp, where the elder has been staying overnight.
September 6: A caravan of Indigenous youth and elders, from many territories visit the blockades to further advise on appropriate respect protocols for forest defenders taking action on the land. 📷
September 22: The blockade camp on Reid main is moved back to its original position at the top of the Ridge at the end of Reid main. More Pacheedaht community members visit the blockades.
October 3: Northview Timber pulls road-building machinery off the mountain, abandoning plans to push roads through into Fairy Creek, past Ridge Camp, until after winter. Ridge camp remains for monitoring. Winterization of River camp continues, including bear-proof communal kitchen shelter, wood-heated communal tents, tool shed and a hot water shower.
October 22: An exploratory trail is cut from the Ridge camp along the Ridge to a lookout point above Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek with a group of Indigenous youth.
October 25: A sacred fire is lit at River Camp by Indigenous elders, youth and matriarchs, for prayer and ceremony, supporting the blockade, the forest and forest protectors.
November 9: Pop-up blockade is established at Grierson main to protect rare valley bottom ancient rainforest from road-building into Camper Creek headwaters.
![[Old Growth Blockade] Old-Growth Blockade Enters Fourth Month](https://dgrnewsservice.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2020/11/fairycreek.jpg)
