On August 6, 1990, about one hundred different businesses in Mendocino County received the following letter:
“Dear Business Owner,
“Have you considered where and how your advertising dollars are being spent? Have you considered the impact the views that radical “environmentalists” will have on the economics of Mendocino County and the timber industry, a major contributor to the economy?
“Their involvement in lawsuits, litigation, and demonstrations against the timber industry is detrimental to the country and many of its workers.
“Reduction of timber harvesting and timber related jobs means fewer customers for your business.
“Those of us who are informed about where our hard-earned dollars are spent urge you to reconsider to whom you are lending your support. Your livelihood and lifestyle depend on it as much as ours do.
“We have passed out a list of businesses that advertise in publications that glorify the radical terrorist group EARTH FIRST! so that people in the area know who these advertisers are. They can then decide where to spend their dollars. As long as you continue to advertise in these publications, the name of your business will be on their list, so that we, the consumer, can exercise our rights, too.
CAUTION … CAUTION … CAUTION … CAUTION …
CAUTION … CAUTION … CAUTION … CAUTION …“By buying products manufactured by, eating at, shopping at, or using the services of any of the following, your are supporting businesses that advertise in papers that glorify the radical terrorist group EARTH FIRST! Remember, they want your job. This list is for any consumer who cares about the future of ranching, mining, fishing, lumber production, or the multiple use of lands. It’s up to you to know where you are spending your dollar…It’s your choice!
“Enjoy your first amendment rights…reprint this at will and pass it on to friends.”[1]
The letter went on to specifically name the 100 or so businesses located in Willits, Laytonville, Hopland, Fort Bragg, and Ukiah. It also listed Patagonia Products and Esprit Clothing as “Corporate Earth First! Contributors” and also, oddly enough, Time-Mirror Publications and Osh Kosh as “Nature Conservancy Contributors”, which was odd given the fact that the latter was most certainly not a supporter of or contributor to Redwood Summer or Earth First!. It concluded with the statement, “If you know of a business that you think should be on this list, send the name of the business and the reason to the (listed) address. Thank you!”[2] The listed address was a post office box in Willits belonging to the Association of California Loggers, another industry front group who had rented in 1984.[3]
As was the case in Humbolt County, at least before Mother’s Watch admitted credit, no one particular individual took credit for the Mendocino County “Caution” letter, though Bruce Anderson, among others, suspected it was the work of Debbie Okerstrom, Jan Patereau, and Gerri Fererra, who were all associated with Okerstrom Logging, whose gyppo logging practices could best be described as mercenary-like. Candace Boak’s involvement was also evident.[4] It was also unclear, this time, which publications Mother’s Watch was targeting in this case, as they were not listed on the “caution” letter. Mark Rawitsch, director of Mendocino College’s Willits Center, one of the listed businesses and institutions reflected,
“It would be more effective if they put the name of the publication out there so people can decide for themselves whether they want to support the business or not…We don’t always know the content of the publications in which we advertise; that’s not why we advertise. We advertise to reach a certain number of people and that’s how we determine where to buy ads.”[5]
One anonymous business owner was outraged by the letter. “They have to resort to terrorist tactics to suppress freedom of speech. I do a lot of business with people on both sides of this issue and I don’t like it when something like this comes anonymously. It’s really awkward.” Another named business owner, Emmy Good, noted a drop in her sales, but inquired which publication she had advertised in to offend Mother’s Watch, “so (she could) run out and buy another ad.” She also pointed out that she used her dollars to support things and causes she liked rather than withholding support from things and causes she didn’t. “What we need to do in these small towns is pull together on these issues”, she added.[6]
Bruce Anderson suspected that the “boycott” was aimed at the Anderson Valley Advertiser, The Mendocino Country Environmentalist, the Mendocino Observer, and the New Settler Interview.[7] Mendocino Country Environmentalist editor and publisher Richard Johnson and New Settler Interview editor and publisher Beth Bosk agreed that their publications were likely targets. Bosk noted that many of her advertisers had received threatening phone calls at odd hours and further stated:
“One of my advertisers contacted the Sheriff’s office and has been assigned an investigator, and another went out of his way to find out who they (Mothers’ Watch) are. He does not advertise in my publication because he shares my political views; he advertises because my readers may buy his products…The bind that small businesses are in is tremendous. To lose any of us could hurt them.”[8]
Richard Johnson was even more blunt, calling the “boycott” a “vicious, stupid idea”; Johnson declared:
“By advertising in my paper, my customers are not necessarily endorsing any of the above, only exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms. They are attempting to reach the readers of my publication much the same as they do when advertising in the Willits News.
“These small, local, and often family-run businesses are completely innocent of any responsibility for what I write. The Mothers’ Watch attempt to force me to shut up by doing them harm is wrong. To get back at your opponent by jeopardizing an innocent third party is what hostage takers do.
There is no bona-fide reason for anyone to compile and publish a list of my advertisers as Mothers’ Watch has done. After all, advertising is a highly public act, never kept secret. I am perfectly willing to go down to the gate of the L.P mill and pass out copies of the Environmentalist any day. So why the mysterious logo, why the fax and the copy machine?”[9]
Bosk and Johnson had never been boycotted before. Bruce Anderson had a slightly different perspective on the matter, as he had already experienced such tactics three previous times. He reflected, “For the AVA, the boycott is the fourth one I know of. My policy is to reassure advertisers that if they are unhappy with the content of this newspaper they can shove both their ad and their business. It’s worked pretty well so far—the paper’s broke, I’m broke.”[10] Tim McKay, director of the North Coast Environmental Center in Arcata since 1975 took a similar approach, noting that harassment of EcoNews advertisers was routine:
“We had our first boycott in 1978, when there was all that fuss over expansion of the Redwood National Park. Back then they were circulating boycott lists in the local mills…We’ve even gotten our share of death threats…It’s been real hard on a few of our advertisers, but most of them are sticking with us.”[11]
Bosk and Johnson, however, were taking no chances, and they retained Willits attorney Montana Podva, himself one of the named businesses and/or individuals by Mothers’ Watch. Johnson elaborated, “We are taking the so-called Mothers’ Watch threat very seriously, and are exploring with our attorneys our legal options. We are determined to vigorously defend the rights of all our current and prospective advertising clients to do business with us.”[12]
Podva made it clear that there was a legal distinction between a legal boycott and an illegal boycott, and the anonymous and potentially slanderous comments in the letter to business owners as well as the list clearly made the Mothers’ Watch an illegal boycott. The attorney also said that he was open to dialog with Mothers’ Watch stating, “They’ve accused me and others of supporting radical terrorist groups, and that’s a libelous statement, and simply not true. But I’d be happy to hear from Mothers’ Watch so we can work this out.”[13] Harwood employee Frank Sanderson fired back—in a letter to the editor of the Willits News—a rebuttal, opining, “With Mr. Podva’s I.Q, level, one would surely expect him to recall his own public statement, made on January 22, 1990 at the William O, Douglas forum held at the Mendocino College, where he said he supported the radical terrorist group, Earth First!, both morally and financially.”[14] This was rhetorical posturing. Clearly, Sanderson was not speaking in any official capacity, and Art Harwood himself had made it clear that he didn’t consider Earth First! to be “a terrorist organization” In any case, Podva was undeterred and issued a “cease and desist” letter to Mothers’ Watch which read, in part:
“This letter is to serve as formal notice that you are being requested by the proprietors of the Mendocino Country Environmentalist and New Settler Magazine, to cease and desist the action of interfering with prospective business interests, inducing breach of contract and libel through the letter and notice requesting each and every advertiser not to continue with advertising in namely, the Mendocino Country Environmentalist and New Settler Magazine.
“You are requested to cease and desist from circulating to clients and prospective clients of the said publications the attached documents or others that convey their same message.
“Furthermore, you are requested, pursuant to California Civil Code section 48(a)(1), to publish a retraction to be distributed in the same manner as the documents at issue here. If action on your part is not taken to resolve this matter, you will be subject to civil legal action by those you have damaged as a direct result of your inflammatory, wrongful and malicious conduct.”[15]
Beth Bosk had noted that the attempted “boycott” in Eureka and Arcata a month or so earlier “fell flat on its face,”[16] a contention that was disputed by Humboldt County Mothers’ Watch spokesperson Diana Mendes[17], but otherwise supported by the facts. Bosk noted that Willits might be more sensitive to one, being a much smaller community than Eureka or Arcata.[18] Most of the businesses and individuals targeted stood firm, however, and refused to buckle under to pressure from Mothers’ Watch. None of the four aforementioned publications lost any significant advertising revenue.[19] According to Larry Melious, owner of The Darkroom, one of the many targeted Willits businesses,
“I can understand how, to some, an open forum, such as the New Settler, can be a threat. These people depend on the divisiveness of the community to deflect attention away from the real issues. They inflict half-truths and downright-lies in order to instigate fear in the weak.
“It is important that the community not yield to the temptation to bicker needlessly about baseless fears while Rome burns.
“Talk to me you faceless, nameless mothers! You may find that your intentions are severely misguided!”[20]
As it was, however, none of the members of Mothers’ Watch in Mendocino County would claim credit for the letter.[21] Diana Mendes of Mothers’ Watch in Humboldt County disputed that a chapter even existed in the county to the south, declaring:
“Mothers’ Watch is a pro-timber movement by families for families in Humboldt County. I know of no such movement in Willits. We have no leader, membership or bank account.
“The situation in Humboldt County is as follows: The movement evolved in 1988 due to educational and environmental concerns in our communities. In 1989, Mothers’ Watch circulated among coworkers and friends a Caution List of businesses that advertise in EcoNews of Arcata and the Country Activist of Redway.
“The Caution List has been updated and circulating since 1989 with requests for copies continuing to date.
“We object to the distortion, exaggeration and misinformation in these papers aimed at the timber industry and its workers. This has caused dissension and alienation in our communities.”[22]
Leaving aside the fact that it was exaggeration and misinformation itself for Mothers’ Watch to claim the banner of timber workers, given chief “mother” Candace Boak’s proven lack of credibility and the similarly questionable reputation of her associates, it is difficult to accept any claim made by any representative of their organization.[23] Mothers’ Watch, like so many of the other supposedly “pro-worker” organizations were anything but grassroots and were easily identifiable as the tools of timber management. Bruce Anderson elaborates:
“The yellow ribbon campaign is the work of the highest levels of corporate timber. It is not the idea of pathetic dupes who do the work, in the case of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, a relative handful of management-level timber contractor wives whose innate nastiness lends itself to anonymous boycott campaigns and threats. The yellow ribbon boys and girls jump when the big boys pull their strings. You’ll never see any of these people at a Labor Day rally or see their letters-to-the-editor complaining of mill conditions, corporate timber moves to Mexico, automation and so forth. There are lots, and I mean lots, of timber workers who know the yellow ribbon campaign for the lying corporate crock that it clearly is.”[24]
Still, the Mendocino Chapter—if it existed—seemed reticent to claim credit for the copycat “boycott”. James S. Smith, president of the Association of California Loggers in 1984 when the post office listed on the Mothers’ Watch boycott letter was opened declined to comment on the matter, but his wife, Nadine Smith, asserted that the author of the letter had not received authorization to use that address. One of the likely suspects, Jan Patereau disclaimed any credit for the letter herself, though she had initially been an avid supporter of Mothers’ Watch itself. She reflected:
“I heard about what the Eureka people were doing up there and I talked to some people to get something together to counteract the anti-timber rhetoric…I was interested in getting a Mothers’ Watch going and the Eureka folks told me to go to the Environmental Center and get these publications. I couldn’t believe the kind of stuff that was in them.”[25]
She started the group along with Debbie Okerstrom, Gerri Fererra, and others.[26] Patereau claimed that within days she was swamped by information and requests for information, no doubt from many in the Yellow crowd. She argued that Mothers’ Watch—much like Earth First! ironically—was a decentralized group with autonomous local chapters. She added:
“I want to do something…I want to say that Earth First! is wrong and that Proposition 130 is wrong. I am interested in both sides of the timber issue, but all these publications do is slam the timber industry.
“The Environmental Center has photos of clearcuts, but they don’t show what they look like in five years after replanting. This is what my gripe is. If the (local businesses) don’t support the timber industry, they don’t belong in Willits.”[27]
Actual timber workers like Duane Potter could have educated Patereau significantly on what happens five years following most clearcuts, and it would have diverged widely from Patereau’s implied description. Her claim to be interested in both sides of the issue was contrasted with her parroting the usual right wing hysteria surrounding Bari and Cherney—and by extension, Earth First!—including that the latter were “radical terrorists (who) blow up power plants, destroy logging equipment, and call in bomb threats where women and children gather.”[28] Except for equipment sabotage, which was only carried out by Earth First! elsewhere, none of these wild accusations were remotely close to being true. Ironically, while a handful, such as Maribelle Anderson expressed support for the so-called “boycott”[29], many of whom might have been counted upon to jump on the Mothers’ Watch bandwagon did not. IWA Local #3-469 Business Representative Don Nelson distanced himself and the IWA from the “boycott”, describing it as a tactic they wouldn’t use, adding that they had “thought about it, (but) considered it (too) negative an approach.” Sensing, perhaps, that there was little support for Mothers’ Watch in Mendocino County, and due to the likelihood that the so-called boycott was not just fizzling, but actually blowing up in her face, Patereau distanced herself from Mothers’ Watch, claiming that she intended to work with the Community Solidarity coalition instead (as if there were really any significant difference).[30]
Indeed, most of the public seemed solidly against Mothers’ Watch and their attempted “boycott” as being needlessly divisive. According to local resident Troy McConnell:
“By boycotting businesses you are doing nothing but building a Berlin Wall between two people who are neighbors. We must quit hiding behind walls and start tearing them down.
"Let’s get back to the real problems—overcutting, jobs, money, clearcutting, and most of all how to keep the forest beautiful and keep the jobs. We need to work on keeping the money local and we need to work on keeping the earth happy with us and give back to the earth all that we take from her.”[31]
His thoughts were echoed by Alex Stillman who opined:
“It seems that many businesses are being boycotted because THEY CARE about the future of Humboldt County and the world. With the advances in technology, we have no reason not to be informed about what is happening to MOTHER EARTH.
“Technology has also played a part on the timber related businesses in our area. It has allowed companies to automate their new mills and revamp their old mills. It has made it possible to have fewer people in the woods due to advanced logging techniques and machinery.
“The ways of this county have been changing for a long time and will continue to change no matter what we here want to do. You see, this is a NATIONAL trend and those businesses being boycotted are not kooks.”[32]
Sharon and Michael Fennell welcomed both the Humboldt and Mendocino County lists, because it gave them an incentive to support the businesses targeted by Mothers’ Watch even more solidly.[33] Meanwhile, Willits resident Marc Komer lamented the possibility that Mothers’ Watch had failed to learn the lessons of history:
“I have been reading the latest round of letters to this paper with great interest. They bring back such vivid memories of the series of letters written in the heat of past community crises such as the Willits Nuclear Free Zone, and the Biomass Project, among others. And here we go again.
“Is this what we want? To create more division, more alienation in this small town? To heap more threats and insults at each other? I for one do not think this serves our needs.
“I feel part of the problem is that we, as people who all care about our homes, children, and com-munity, must sit down together and look into each other’s faces when we are talking. In that way we can see who we are talking to. There we will see that the people of opposing view are human beings that have some overlapping interests…”[34]
In Humboldt County, Arlo Hagler, owner of one of the businesses that had been boycotted there stood by his decision to continue advertising in the targeted publications:
“I am proud to say that I have been greenlisted by Mothers’ Watch! This action was taken against me, among others, because I advertise my services in the Country Activist, a newspaper which strives to present all sides of the timber issue, in contrast to the decidedly one-sided coverage given by the mainstream press.
“Mothers’ Watch is, in truth, a slimy deception. Claiming to represent timber workers’ families, they are actually toadies of corporate timber, bought and paid for. Their every word and action comes from the PR departments of the timber companies, in a cynical and well orchestrated campaign of senseless emotional rhetoric. Recent letters (and poems) in support of “Big Stump” (Prop 138) are a prime example of this. These people no more represent the long-term interests of timber families, than Harry Merlo represents Earth First!
“Their allegations of violence and mayhem on the part of “environmentalists” seems ludicrous in light of the Mothers’ connection with groups like the 'Stompers' and the 'Sahara Club', whose stated purpose is to promote violent acts against citizen activists.
“I make my living in the construction trade, as an electrician…
“We know how much Big Timber cares for the workers and their families (witness Maxxam gutting PL’s pension fund, LP breaking its union, and its recent murder of Fortunado Reyes, simply to avoid downtime at the mill). Left to themselves, Big T will cut everything now, turn the entire north coast into a moonscape, and move on to continue the rape elsewhere, while we who live here, environmentalist and logger alike, remain to pay the price.”[35]
Even Chester M. Gillis, a staunch opponent of Redwood Summer and Forests Forever opposed the “boycott”, no doubt because it discredited his allies:
“It would seem that some people who purport to support the timber industry would stoop to the same lows as the radicals supporting Earth First! and Forests Forever in their lust to promote their cause.
“The people involved in Mothers’ Watch seem to have no real knowledge of how the business world operates. Schools like Mendocino College must advertise where they can get results…
“It might not be too surprising that some radical group like this surfaced in Eureka. Eureka is many times bigger than Willits or any other place in Mendocino County, for that matter, and its economic situation is quite different from ours, but anyone from Willits who become involved in something like this is kidding himself…”[36]
Only a handful seemed supportive of the “boycott”, such as Frank Sanderson, who compared it to the famous boycott of table grapes in solidarity with the United Farm Workers in the 1960s or the anti-apartheid boycott of South Africa in the mid 1980s. Sanderson opined:
“This form of political/economic action has brought many changes over the years and now, once again, the boycott is being used to force change.
“As with most boycotts, those being boycotted are up in arms, crying foul, pursuing the possibilities of litigation, and just getting downright indignant.
"Now that Mother’s Watch has suggested not spending timber dollars where they are possibly being used against the very industry which provided them, it is no longer considered a right guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
“Many of the same people now crying foul, I am sure, fully support the right to blockade a logging road or to file frivolous lawsuits in order to stop or slow down the legal harvesting of timber.
“Some of these good people, now concerned only with what this is doing to further polarize our communities may even have been participants in these types of disruptive illegal activities, but feel that their rights are being infringed upon.
“Well, what of the rights and responsibilities of the consumer? Those of us who still have timber dollars to spend, have the responsibility and right to screen those merchants with whom we do business and not to do business with those opposed to our way of life.”[37]
Richard Johnson challenged Sanderson on several counts, including the latter’s inaccurate description of the Mothers’ Watch action, which was a reaction to a grassroots campaign against established powers, as a boycott, which is usually itself a grassroots campaign against established powers:
“(F)or a boycott to be genuine, it must be open and based squarely on the truth, and this one is neither…
“Rather than being a genuine boycott that people in our community would proudly consider joining in order to show support for timber jobs, isn’t this really a blacklist? If it were as righteous as Mr. Sanderson says, why didn’t the Mothers sign it?
“If it were a real boycott, wouldn’t it be aimed at preventing me from glorifying something that the Mothers don’t like? Instead, this seems aimed at punishing someone else in retribution for what I have already written.
“If it were a legitimate, upfront boycott, then the first impact would come down on my income, not on my neighbors’ income.”[38]
Diana Mendes of Mothers’ Watch insisted that the list of Humboldt County businesses was not a blacklist, but rather a “caution list”. Mendes explained, “It is not our goal to drive these merchants out of business, but rather to arouse consciousness as to the position EcoNews and Country Activist have taken.” [39] It was, no doubt, also the goal of Mothers’ Watch to coerce these businesses through intimidation and fear to divest from these publications, however, so the term blacklist was appropriate.
Johnson also challenged Sanderson’s regurgitation of corporate timber’s talking points against the Redwood Summer coalition, and by extension his publication:
“The fact is that instead of glorifying terrorism, the Environmentalist promotes nonviolence—not just as a tactic, but as a world view…
“Mr. Sanderson makes a comparison between civil disobedience and the anonymous Mothers’ Watch letters, saying that environmentalists who block logging roads shouldn’t complain when their businesses are hit with boycotts.
“But the difference is the nonviolence code. Unlike Mothers’ Watch, we act in the open. We’re upfront about who we are and what we believe. We don’t intentionally inflict harm on anyone or anything.
“In all my years in the movement, I have never met what the timber industry calls a ‘preservationist’ who wants to make all logging stop The fact is that instead of going out to take jobs away from honest logging families, we environmentalists are working hard both for forests and for families. After all, it’s the forests, not the timber corporations that provide the paychecks.”[40]
For all of the hoopla, the “boycott” or blacklist—depending on one’s point of view—fizzled in Mendocino County just as it did a month previously in Humboldt County. Nobody, not Jan Patereau, not anyone else in Mothers’ Watch, would even claim credit for the list, and few of the businesses would budge.[41] Beth Bosk noted that only two advertisers pulled their advertising from her publication:
“One was a brand new advertiser who had just put a lot of money into a building and said they couldn’t risk a bomb explosion for a $3 ad. The other spent a half hour telling me how sorry they were, but their boss was insistent. The rest expressed anger, and a lot of them don’t share my politics, but they had strong feelings that the boycott was inappropriate…It went from heartbreaking to heartwarming.”[42]
That’s not to suggest that the effort didn’t have its supporters; it did, but usually from the usual suspects and assorted reactionaries who were willing to back anything corporate timber did, because, in their minds, the alternative was “Communism!” or something else equally undesirable. Kay Williams, a Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance reader, in an Orwellian twisting of logic suggested that the “boycott” showed businesses what would happen to the economy if Redwood Summer succeeded, though, of course, she had no substantive research or data to support such a conclusion.[43] Brookie Chambers, a resident of San Diego argued that the blacklist was an inevitable reaction to Earth First!’s attempts to “destroy business”.[44] Still these views were few and far between. If anything the blacklist in both counties backfired. What few timber workers expressed their opinions were disdainful of it.[45] Tim McKay, in a move that recalled the IWW free speech fights of old, even suggested that businesses and individuals make a political statement by volunteering to have their names added to the list!
“When the Nazis occupied Denmark, it was decreed that all Jews would be required to publicly display the Star of David to signify their supposedly demeaned state of being.
“In Denmark, the king put on a Star of David, saying rules applied to any of his subjects applied to him too. Most other citizens of Denmark did, too—an historic act of courage.
“While we might hope for everyone in our community to petition to get on the ‘blacklist,’ the only noble leaders we have at the moment are those who have made the list—our legal advertisers. They deserve your support.”[46]
Arlo Hagler recalls, “Since I was “greenlisted”, I have been getting more business than ever, and can now afford to advertise more. So I’m taking out ads in the New Settler Interview, the Observer, and Econews! Thanks, Mothers’ Watch!”[47] Nobody, except for corporate timber’s enablers perhaps, believed that the so called “boycott” was anything but a manufactured and phony industry front operation designed to look like a real grassroots effort. As described by Darryl Cherney:
“Candy and M.W. have written many letters saying that Earth First! activists are “commie, dope growing, dirty, welfare-receiving terrorists. This constitutes a clear plan to discredit people on a personal basis and on a basis of lies. But most importantly, what if you’re a business owner, an employer of working people, and taxpayer and landowner, an upstanding citizen. Well, she’ll try to put you out of business if you advertise to environmentalists, a clear attack on our most basic civil rights, Candy Boak and Mother’s Watch are unequivocally fascist.”[48]
Bob Martel echoed these sentiments:
“Mothers Watch is a new form of the old religion, which united the hidden elites with their ‘disciplined workforce’ This religion has the corporate structure as its deity, corporate executives as the priest class. Instead of the Ten Commandments about personal morality, the corporate religious tenets are about team players who recognize the value of back scratching, about the sanctity of property. They care little for the spirit of any law except the one that says ‘get yours before someone else does’.
The Mothers Watch followers want us to believe the corporations know best. ‘Charles Hurwitz has a right to do as he wills, after all, he is rich’. Mothers Watch will, however, learn a different way of judging Hurwitz and the corporate gods when the reality of our gutted economy and endangered ecology becomes too clear for anyone to ignore.[49]
Even corporate timber publically distanced itself from the blacklist. G-P’s Dave Odgers and L-P’s Shep Tucker had warned timber “supporters” that the effort would fail. Tucker, in particular had urged its enablers to obtain stickers reading “paid for with timber dollars” and affix them to each check they wrote, because it constituted “a much more positive message.”[50] A more accurate message might have been to affix a sticker to each pink slip and foreclosure notice reading, “resulting from the dollars siphoned out of this community by the timber corporations”, but naturally Tucker wouldn’t endorse this.
Mothers’ Watch claimed that they were countering the “misinformation” and “extremism” put forth by the environmentalists, “who cared nothing for the plight of the timber worker,” but in fact it was another case of the pot calling the kettle black. If anything it was the environmentalists who understood the problems and issues, including the plight of the timber worker, most deeply. As described by Tim McKay:
“The question for society is how do we bring justice to all of those caught in the middle.
“What programs are available to assist workers or communities in transition where jobs are lost because we don’t make stealth bombers, nuclear warheads or manufacture nerve gas? These examples are extreme, but make the point that there are many historical examples of economic change because of inevitable advances in technology or consciousness.
“Environmentalists, for their part, have often tried to stabilize social and environmental conditions since stable conditions often create the most diverse living environments.
“The history of Big Timber in America, or around the world for that matter, has not been one of stability for environments or, communities. Cut and run was not invented by environmentalists, and logging and milling timber have long been among the most hazardous of occupations.
“Thousands of tiny logging towns have blossomed across the landscape and have withered away with the passing of the great forests. And Big Timber historically has resisted all attempts to smooth out the transitions.”[51]
With change comes resistance to change, usually borne out of fear. The Mothers’ Watch blacklist was only one example of the irrational response to an inevitable paradigm shift—caused more than anything else by corporate logging practices. The attempt to stifle Stenberg’s day care business was another. Still one more came at the behest of the Fort Bragg Post master who deemed local resident Marcy Snyder’s artwork, which depicted destructive clearcuts, “inappropriate” for the Post Office art display.[52] In the end, Bosk decided not to pursue legal action against Mothers’ Watch, because it would require her advertisers to be drawn even further into a battle that they didn’t want, and also because there was nothing to be gained or lost financially by doing so, adding, “I felt I couldn’t go out and sell advertising to people putting them at financial risk without telling them what was going on.”[53] The blacklist had failed twice, and that was due primarily to the solidarity of the targets and their supporters. It showed that the influence of corporate timber, which had been used to getting its way was waning. Ominously, however, it also showed that its enablers were willing to stoop to crude and repressive tactics if they deemed it necessary.
Notes:
[1] “’Mothers’ Watch: The Timber Industry’s Dirty Fight”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[2] “’Mothers’ Watch: The Timber Industry’s Dirty Fight”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[3] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[4] “Mothers’ Watch: The Timber Industry’s Dirty Fight”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[5] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[6] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[7] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[8] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[9] “Timber Ad Boycott a Viscious, Stupid Idea”, by Richard Johnson, Mendocino Country Environmentalist, September 1, 1990. A similar piece ran in the Willits News (“Anti Boycott”), September 5, 1990 and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 19, 1990.
[10] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[11] “Pro-timber Flyer Blacklisting Businesses Draws Angry Back-blast”, by Mike Geniella, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 28, 1990.
[12] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[13] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[14] “Other Foot”, letter to the editor by Frank Sanderson, Willits News, August 22, 1990.
[15] “Cease and Desist!”, letter to Mothers’ Watch dated August 10, 1990, by Montana Podva, reprinted in the Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[16] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[17] “Mothers’ Watch Works”, letter to the editor by Diana Mendes, Willits News, August 29, 1990.
[18] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[19] “’Mothers’ Watch: The Timber Industry’s Dirty Fight”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[20] “Faceless Mothers”, letter to the editor by Larry Melious, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[21] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[22] “Mothers’ Watch Works”, letter to the editor by Diana Mendes, Willits News, August 29, 1990.
[23] “Blacklist, Blackmail Stalk North Coast”, by Andy Alm, EcoNews, August 1990.
[24] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, September 8, 1990
[25] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[26] “Mothers’ Watch: The Timber Industry’s Dirty Fight”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[27] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[28] “Back to Cats”, letter to the editor by Jan Patereau, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[29] “Grass Roots Power”, letter to the editor by Maribelle Anderson, Ukiah Daily Journal, September 6, 1990.
[30] “Mothers’ Watch Blacklists Scores of County Businesses”, Willits News, August 15, 1990.
[31] “All Neighbors”, letter to the editor by Troy McConnell, Willits News, August 29, 1990.
[32] “Boycott is Odd Idea”, letter to the editor by Alex Stillman, EcoNews, August 1990.
[33] “They Dig the List”, letter to the editor by Sharon and Michael Fennell, EcoNews, August 1990.
[34] “Eye to Eye”, letter to the editor by Marc Komer, Willits News, August 22, 1990.
[35] Letter to the editor by Arlo Hagler, various publications including Country Activist, October 1990 (“Proud to be Greenlisted!”); and EcoNews, December 1990 (“Green-Listed and for Proposition 130”).
[36] “No on Mothers’ Watch”, by Chester M. Gillis, Willits News, August 22, 1990.
[37] Letter to the editor by Frank Sanderson, various publications including Willits News, August 22, 1990 (“Eye Opener”); and Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 7, 1990 (“Timber Boycott”).
[38] “Timber Ad Boycott a Vicious, Stupid Idea”, by Richard Johnson, Mendocino Country Environmentalist, September 1, 1990. A similar piece ran in the Willits News (“Anti Boycott”), September 5, 1990 and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 19, 1990. Emphasis added.
[39] “Protests Prompt Community Action”, by Leslie Weiss, The Lumberjack, August 29, 1990.
[40] “Timber Ad Boycott a Vicious, Stupid Idea”, by Richard Johnson, Mendocino Country Environmentalist, September 1, 1990. A similar piece ran in the Willits News (“Anti Boycott”), September 5, 1990 and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 19, 1990.
[41] “Mothers’ Watch Boycott Fizzles”, Willits News, August 22, 1990.
[42] “Final Strains of Redwood Summer to be Played Out Through Media”, by Judy Nichols, North Coast News, September 6, 1990.
[43] “Letter Writer Addresses Boycott Issue”, letter to the editor by Kay Williams, Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance, September 20, 1990.
[44] “Boycott Shouldn’t be a Surprise”, letter to the editor by Brookie Chambers, Ukiah Daily Journal, October 2, 1990.
[45] “Mothers’ Watch Incites Fear in Worker”, letter to the editor by Joe Johnson, Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance, July 19, 1990.
[46] “Nature Nazis”, by Tim McKay, EcoNews, August 1990.
[47] Letter to the editor by Arlo Hagler, various publications including Country Activist, October 1990 (“Proud to be Greenlisted!”); and EcoNews, December 1990 (“Green-Listed and for Proposition 130”).
[48] “No on Boak and Boakism”, letter to the editor by Darryl Cherney, Anderson Valley Advertiser, December 19, 1990.
[49] “Editorial: What are the Mothers Watching?”, by Bob Martel, Country Activist, December 1990.
[50] “Final Strains of Redwood Summer to be Played Out Through Media”, by Judy Nichols, North Coast News, September 6, 1990.
[51] “Nature Nazis”, by Tim McKay, EcoNews, August 1990.
[52] “Not Suitable”, letter to the editor by Marcy Snyder, Mendocino Beacon, August 9, 1990.
[53] “Final Strains of Redwood Summer to be Played Out Through Media”, by Judy Nichols, North Coast News, September 6, 1990.