By AVA News service – Anderson Valley Advertiser, July 25, 1990
Some 1,600 people dressed mainly in yellow held a “community solidarity rally” Saturday afternoon at the high school football field in Fort Bragg. Like the key organizers, Mike and Maribelle Anderson, most of the speakers and many who attended were small business people—owners of logging trucks and heavy equipment Members of their families and a number of their employees filled out the crowd. These people are on G-P’s payroll, directly or in-directly, and they want to look good in the eyes of those who do the hiring.
The rally focused on Proposition 130, which speaker after speaker denounced as “The Earth First! Initiative.” Since Earth First! is not involved in electoral politics, and since Prop 130 is being pushed by the Sierra Club and other “respectable” environmental groups, this definition is deceitful. It’s a tactic devised by timber industry PR experts whose front group, Californians for New Forestry,” is headquartered in Sacramento.[1]
Talk about outside agitators…Wearing yellow ribbons and passing out literature at the 30-yard line were three members of Lyndon LaRouche’s political cult. (LaRouche is doing time for conning old people out of their savings, so he couldn’t come himself.) Signs on their table said “Stop the FBI Cover-up of Eco-fascist terrorism” and “Eat spotted owls for dinner.” As the AVA approached we heard a LaRouche lieutenant telling a logger that the FBI had proof that Judi Bari was transporting the bomb that almost killed her, but they were under orders to hush it up.
What are these vicious sickos doing here, we wondered? Our commitment to nonviolence wasn’t strong enough to pursue the question. Besides, the answer was obvious. The formal proceedings began with a prayer from Baptist minister Terry Cole, the pledge of allegiance and a painful version of the national anthem. Then Maribelle Anderson led the crowd in a long repeat-after-me pledge: “We are hard-working, decent people…We will not lower ourselves by getting into arguments with misinformed people…” It wasn’t a plea for nonviolence so much as an instruction not to engage in dialog with any of the environmentalists who had come to town.
Maribelle introduced her friend Janie England and explained, “Twenty years ago on this very foot-ball field, we were cheerleaders, and today we’re going to be cheerleaders again.” The ladies whipped out their pompoms and proceeded to prance about the stage, yelling “Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Loggers, loggers, yay!!!” The crowd did not seem very aroused.
They remained muted as the speakers whined about how Earth First! was threatening their families, communities, values, lifestyles, etc. They didn’t laugh too hard over the recurring “joke” that all Earth First!ers were on welfare, but even their checks are made from wood.” Obviously many people understand that timber jobs were dwindling in Mendocino long before Earth First! came on the scene, and none of the speakers—not “small business owner” Judy Bailey nor “wife of a forester” Terry Susan nor “small landowner” Wayne Miller nor “ex timber faller” Don Nelson nor “logger” Jerry Philbrick—were demagogic enough to work them into a displaced rage. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that hard times are still an abstraction to most of the people who attended this rally. If and when their jobs disappear, the corporate effort to blame Earth First! might have more effect.
Doug Bosco arrived and began chatting with some TV reporters. Up close our “representative” has a puffy, vapid look, and whoever applied the Grecian formula to his hair really botched the job. The first Congressional words we caught were, “Earth First!, with their pipe bombs and their tree-spiking …” sleazily implying what the LaRouchies had been bold enough to assert. We asked if he had reason to believe that any Earth First!ers ever had anything to do with any pipe bombs? Bosco replied, “I only meant they’ve introduced these terms into our political language.” We asked for a comment on whether his dealings with Centennial Savings will implicate him in the growing Savings & Loan scandal. He flushed, said, “I’ve been denying that for years,” and stalked away. One of the reporters then scolded for having interrupted his interview with “The Congressman.”
Almost half the crowd had departed by the time Bosco spoke. He attempted a sick joke about the spotted owl: “if they need 6,000 acres to find a mate, they deserve to be extinct.” This got a mild laugh—from the LaRouchies—as the crowd continued to trickle away.
Anyone leaving the yellow-shirts’ rally and encountering the Earth First!ers heading down Main Street had to be struck by their high energy and social diversity. The marchers seemed to have more working people in their midst and to exude more humor, more seriousness, more honesty, more passion… Those present when Duane Potter gave his climactic talk may have reflected that loggers of his type—men who don’t own much equipment, who have only their muscle and skill in the woods to sell—were not among the leaders of “the campaign to defeat the Earth First! initiative.” There is a class split in Fort Bragg, just like every place else.
Notes:
[1] The anti-proposition 130 campaign had managed to have Darryl Cherney’s name listed as a supporter of the Proposition in the argument against it in the California Voter Guide. Earth First! and Darryl Cherney—neither in support or opposition to the measure—sued unsuccessfully to have his name removed (from the “Here and There” section of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.