By Nat Bingham – North Coast News, June 7, 1990
The big question about the bomb that went off in Judi Bari’s car in Oakland that sticks in my mind is who benefits?
The official line put out by the Oakland police was that Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari were blown up by a bomb that they were transporting to places unknown for purposes unknown to the police.
The only evidence supporting this theory which has been given out by Oakland’s finest is that Darryl and Judi were members of a radical environmental organization which espouses “terrorism”. Far out. Get bombed and then while you’re still in a state of shock, get busted for your philosophy.
The police reached this conclusion with breathtaking speed, swooping down within hours on the house in Oakland where the two had stayed for a drug bust style raid which left the house in shambles. Earth First!ers who were present at the raid told reporters that a search of Darryl Chemey’s van parked outside the Seeds of Peace house resulted in a box being blown up in the street which left strands of cassette tape festooning the phone wires. Get busted and have your tapes blown up, too.
But let’s be charitable and try to buy this story and see if it fits. O.K. you’re a dangerous radical activist and you’re driving around with your associate looking for something to bomb. So you arm your device and put it on or under the front seat of the car right next to your friend.
Permit me to digress. To arm a bomb means to make it ready to go off. The police said the evidence collected at the site of the explosion indicated that the device was a pipe bomb. While it is remotely possible that static electricity could have accidentally set off the bomb if the detonator was attached to it, it seems unlikely that they would choose to drive around accompanied by a live, ready-to-go bomb.
The more serious question is what would be the benefit to the Earth First! movement right now if they are trying to move in the direction of nonviolence? The whole thing about the Summer in the Redwoods and the 5,000 students that were supposed to be coming to the North Coast was that it was going to be a non-violent action. Even if they had successfully bombed something, where is the public relations gain? If they were in fact the perpetrators, then they definitely win the North Coast Crime Club annual ineptitude in crime award.
So, if your politics dictates that the Earth First!ers have to be the bad guys, then here’s the crypto-conspirator theory. Darryl and Judi were sacrificial lambs offered up by a secret criminal syndicalist cabal to attract left wing sympathy. If you believe that one then you are really out there.
Now let’s try it on me other way. It makes sense as a plot to, discredit Earth. First! If it was loggers trying to kill Darryl and Judi, I think the attack would have been successful. How many car bombings have you seen on TV or read about where the victims weren’t killed? Three or four sticks of dynamite near the gas tank, wired to the car ignition and there’s not much left. But a small bomb that doesn’t kill does not create martyrs, it sets up an arrest and subsequent criminal legal procedure which could discredit and financially drain the environmental movement.
It could have just as easily come from the right wing lunatic fringe as the left. Just such tactics were used against the Black Panthers in the late 1970’s by the Oakland Police (coincidence?).
I don’t for sure have all the facts on this most unfortunate happening. I was hopeful that some good might come out of the nonviolent actions that are planned for this summer.
Terrorism, as it always seems to do, will only make it harder for everyone to come together to work on solving the deforestation problem. Putting the timber industry out of business is not the answer. They need to be helped toward the understanding that they must be the stewards and caretakers of the land. The Earth First!ers need to check out that the roof over them is probably made of wood. Senseless acts of violence such as this one will only prolong the conflict, and may end saving less trees then sitting down and working the issues out For the sake of the earth, let us say now “Enough, let it stop now.”