B O O T L E G 2 Same shit, Different pile Nov. 3, 1992 As I write, the polls are still open and it is far from clear which of the bosses' candidates for U.S. president will get the nod. But one thing is clear--whichever won(and the result will be out long before this sees print), we're in for four more years of capitalist austerity. Four more years of attacks on our living standards. Four more years of raids on our health and retirement benefits. Four more years of government taking the tax dollars it steals from our hard earned paychecks and giving them to the corporations (as if they don't steal enough already from our paychecks--but I guess corporations can never make too much profit). Four more years of attacks on our natural environment--on the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil in which our food is grown, the forests which the bosses seem determined to turn into tree farms. Four more years of rising unemployment, longer hours, and mounting numbers of workers literally killed on the job. In short, four more years of this capitalist "American dream." And to add insult to injury, in a few months the polytricksters will start gearing up for the 1994 and 1996 election seasons. The AFL-CIO, National Organization for Women, Sierra Club and the likes endorsed for president a man who, as governor of Arkansas, has funneled millions of workers' tax dollars to corporations and worked diligently to ensure that the bosses were allowed to do whatever they wantedwhether to the environment or to their workers Ultimately, despite all the sound and fury attending these elections, there is no reason to believe they will make any difference in our lives. If we continue to rely on our "leaders" to extricate us from this deepening crisis, we can rest assured that they will continue to lead us further in. Four More Years of capital triumphant. If we want a better world, if we want more of the good things of life, we will have to organize and fight for them. X331117 ############################### The mainstream press has a direct interest in upholding the corporate power structure. It relies on corporate ads for funding and is often corporate owned. It is also published for profit. The mainstream press also has a direct interest in currying the favors of politicians. It is dependent on public figures for information and easy to swallow soundbites. And it is subject to government regulation and censorship. The mainstream press is run by professionals, educated and institutionalized. They are paid to do the job, more often to impress the boss than in an effort to inform the public. They are outside of the issues they attempt to interpret, with little understanding of the context, and misrepresent these issues frequently. BOOTLEG is freepress, underground, radical, published by volunteers, relying on donations, giving voice to perspectives otherwise ignored. BOOTLEG needs your support, your ideas and all your money to continue. send letters, comments, submissions, and your next paycheck to: BOOTLEG 360 E Edith Ave Salt Lake City, UT 84111 or send email to msbenefi@cadehp0.eng.utah.edu and your message will be forwarded please just trust us and don't read the small print below All submissions will be edited to represent our point of view. Letters will be printed only if they say what we want them to say and how we want them to say it. BOOTLEG is published with generous financial support from Fidel Castro, all donations go to the purchase of weapons for revolutionary movements in the U.S. and abroad. Volunteers will start at the bottom and work their way up. Follow us. ############################### Somalia - Troops Out Now! "I was astounded by the sight of children dying from cholera, typhoid and hepatitis. Many suffered from gastroenteritis, an affliction that causes slow death by dehydration. The suffering is compounded by the malnutrition evidenced by the sunken eyes, wrinkled skin and abnormally low weights..." "...severe gastroenteritis and diarrhea were rampant. Everyone was a potential victim of disease, but it was especially bad for small children, who are less resistant to the rapid dehydration resulting from diarrhea." "Children drink water from bomb craters. They play in knee-deep sewage. They go to bed hungry, night after night. Epidemics stalk these children. Cholera. Typhoid. Hepatitis. Weakened by malnutrition, children die in a matter of days...55,000 children have already died...pot bellies and bony faces...water cannot be purified, waterborne diseases flourish..." No, these are not descriptions of conditions the U.S. military promises to relieve, but of conditions they created, not Somalia, but post-war Iraq. But Somalia, like Iraq, is a creation of western imperialism, a legacy of colonialism and oppression and a victim of cold war politics. After Siad Barre switched from Soviet to U.S. clientdom in 1977, the United States was resolute in its support of this malevolent dictator. Somalia's position on the horn of Africa made it a strategic location for U.S. naval facilities at the port of Berbera. Armed and supported by the Carter and Reagan administrations, Siad Barre's regime was responsible for the slaughter of some 150,000 northerners in the former British Somaliland, and the neartotal destruction of northern towns like Hargesia with the help of South African bomber pilots and U.S. logistical backup and diplomatic protection. Somalia's problems sprouted from western involvement, and it is nothing short of ridiculous to believe that they can be solved by western involvement, worse, it is racist and imperialist. In the absence of any U.S. client regime, Somalis had made great progress towards self determination. Clan elders were able to insure that relief could be safely delivered and distributed; the power of the warlords was visibly eroding. The U.N. claimed prior to U.S. invasion that up to 80 percent of all relief was being stolen, but relief organizations such as Save the Children and the International Committee of the Red Cross endured a loss rate of 5 to 10 percent, a fairly constant figure in all relief efforts. Although pocketsof extreme malnutrition remain, not all Somalis are starving. Somalia is green today; the drought is over and the region has enjoyed heavier rains than it has seen in years. Rakiya Omaar, former director of Africa Watch, a branch of Human Rights Watch, until she was fired over her opposition to U.S. intervention, argues that intervention could force most relief agencies to leave Somalia. All foreign relief workers will become targets for terrorist reprisals. Save the Children has already said that it will be forced to withdraw if this happens. Only the U.N. will stay, and their program is incompetently run... "Equally importantly, the work of the Somali clan leaders, doctors and humanitarian workers will become impossible. These people are absolutely vital if the international relief effort is to stand any chance of success, but none will be able to work on behalf of an invading force. It cannot be over stressed that the contribution of Somalis to relieving the famine, healing the sick and resolving the conflict is greater than the entire international relief effort." On Dec 12, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that a "disagreement over whether marines or Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers would drive the trucks ...played a role in the cancellation" of a convoy that "meant the fourth straight day without food deliveries for the northern section of the capital" It was "kind of ironic," said an exasperated Rick Grant of CARE International, that his relief agency had been able on it's own to move 2 tons of food to the north in the four days prior to the U.S. arrival. The Dec 15 Tribune reported "A Utah nurse working in Somali refugee camps has not seen improvement since marines came to the rescue of the starving African nation," and in another story quoted relief workers critical of the military and Mohomoud Iman Aden, who runs an orphanage for 1820 children in Somalia, "In some ways, they have made it worse." Rather than making small forays into the bush to reach the most desperate, such as many relief workers have done, the U.N. and U.S. forces work through famine "camps," armed enclaves, fenced in Compounds without adequate water or sanitation that invariably lead to epidemics of disease and death rates five times or more higher than in surrounding villages. These famine camps will become mass killers, doing more harm than good. In addition to apparently fucking up the relief efforts, rather than improving them, the military presence in Somalia has, I'm sure, been accompanied with the usual rise in prostitution and rape that seems to follow the armed forces wherever it goes, whether in the Philippines, Okinawa or Portland. This alone is sufficient argument against U.S. military intervention anywhere, ever. Controlling the future of Somalia is not just in the interest of the U.S. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali is known to oppose the desire of the Somali National Movement, in the northern half of Somalia, which was, before 1960, British Somaliland, to be independent of the southern half, which was an Italian colony, and Italy's interest in the affairs of it's former colony is as intense as Germany's toward its former dependencies of the Nazi years, Croatia and Slovenia. Military intervention would be a way of annulling the birth of an independent Somaliland. Meanwhile, Italian companies are dumping toxic waste into the Indian ocean off the coast of Somalia according to clan leaders. Exiled Somalis accuse one warlord, selfdeclared president Mahdi Mohamed, of taking money to allow the dumping. A Swiss- based firm, Achair Partners signed a deal with Mohamed in Dec, 1991 to build at least one incinerator to store and burn half a million tons a year of waste, in the Mogadishu region. The incinerator is to open in 1993. A United Nations official in Kenya would not disclose the source or any details, saying "We are dealing with a Mafia here. Some of my colleagues are really frightened for their lives." A U.S. military force of 28,000 with a virtually open-ended mission to secure Somalia until order is restored, is by its nature a significant political enterprise. It gives the United States a presence in one of the most strategically sensitive spots in the world today: astride the Horn of Africa, where oil, Islamic fundamentalism and Israeli, Iranian and Arab ambitions and arms are apt to crash and collide. Intervention, in that scenario, will likely project American power in the region into the next century. And a substantial armed occupation cannot remain neutral. It will inevitably come to support not only one or another warlord but also the merchant class, which is already making a bundle off the misery of the poor. The Marines sent in to guard the food convoys for the poor will in effect be doing the job for the rich, whose position is precarious in the current state of chaos and deprivation. The United States has no interest in creating democracy with real social implications, only elections and stability. When the starving stops, America's chosen warlords and merchants will have secured their local control, nothing basic will have changed and the stage will be set for the next phase of imperialist oppression. The World has many woes, and with all the might it possesses, the United States can do little to remove them without making things worse. ############################### Love thy neighbor? Wayne Court and the Greek Orthodox Church When Mayor Deedee Corradini announced plans for a baseball stadium that threatened Pioneer Park and a speed skating rink that would destroy unfinished low-income housing on block 49, residents of Wayne Court joined with Art Space and the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church to defend the neighborhood. Now the neighborhood is threatened again, this time by the Greek Orthodox Church itself. Wayne Court, like neighboring Delmar Court, is comprised of a quiet alley off of third south lined by 85 year old brick houses, flower gardens and friendly neighbors. The church owns both courts, as well as the La France apartments on third south. It has now announced plans to destroy it. In October, the church originally notified tenants of it's intent to demolish seven units to make way for a warehouse, to be used to store equipment from the church's annual Greek Festival, and to be financed, in part, by the festival's proceeds. The number of units later changed to four, and then five. The loss of income will be compensated for by increasing rent on the remaining units. Meanwhile, tenants have learned of long range plans that include the eventual demolition of all of Wayne and Delmar Courts, both of which will, if the church has its way, be replaced by parking lots. This in a city already suffocated in parking space, where hundreds of units of low-income housing are lost to gentrification every year, where vacancy rates hover around 2%, and homeless rates are rising 20% annually. The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church has been provided with a number of alternative plans, other locations for this warehouse do exist, and the church was even offered $55,000 by the city to build the warehouse elsewhere. Rumors have suggested that part of the church's motivation may lie in a desire to "cleanse" the neighborhood of "bohemians and faggots." At a sunday vigil in front of the church, one member of the congregation commented "I hope they tear them all down, maybe some of the gays will move out." Stephen Goldsmith of ArtSpace, across the street from the church, who has been involved in the struggle to save Wayne Court, has been referred to as "that Jew guy." And women from the congregation have called in sympathy, afraid to give their names for fear of retribution in a patriarchal organization that denies them a voice. Wayne Court residents have been able to get a lot of publicity for their struggle and have been pressuring the local church hierarchy to reconsider, as well as contacting church officials in Denver and New York. Efforts have been made to work with the congregation, such as the open house where 1300 members of the Greek community were invited, but only three showed up, or the Sunday vigils in front of the church, attended by tenants, members of the Disabled Rights Action Coalition, the Crossroads Urban Center, and Utah Activist Network, as well as friends and neighbors. The congregation, on the other hand, has shown little desire to work with residents of Wayne Court. Several tenants are scheduled for eviction on Dec 31, but the fight to save Wayne Court will go on until the asphalt is laid over the ground where it once stood. For more information or to get involved call Tom Parrish at 355-7909 ############################### Cowboys & Indians Matthew Haun In pre-Colombian times, the Western Shoshone lived in small semi-nomadic bands throughout the Great Basin - a social structure in harmony with such an arid climate. Once the U.S. had claimed Nevada (primarily for the silver there) it began the usual process of cultural genocide so familiar to all Native Americans. The Western Shoshone were "urged" to abandon their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and take up farming and ranching. Nowadays, our stalwart land management agencies are even charging Shoshone people user fees for gathering Pinion nuts as their ancestors have for eons. Thank god for free enterprise. One band that opted for the ranching option is the Dann family. Currently, this family is headed by two older sisters, Carrie and Mary Dann. Their small ranch is located in Crescent Valley, Nevada, which is well within the boundaries of the land promised to the Western Shoshone in the Treaty of Ruby Valley (1863). What the Shoshone call Newe Sogobia we would call most of Nevada stretching down into southern California and up into Idaho and Utah. It is a huge chunk of land which also includes the Nevada Test Site (the Shoshone have been getting sincerely cranky at being the most bombed nation on Earth as well). For their part, the Dann sisters see little sense in paying grazing fees for land that is theirs. The BLM has taken them to court in a lengthy judicial battle. Put very simply, our sense of jurisprudence cannot flat out deny the treaties we have made; but no way in hell are we going to give all that land back. So, the BLM is moving in to take the cows and destroy the family's livelihood. The interesting thing is that the BLM isn't moaning about the grazing fees (which would inevitably lead to the question of who owns the land) They claim instead that the Danns are overgrazing. Now, I for one would sing "Hosanna" to the Dept. of Agriculture if the BLM were really going to crack down on overgrazing. But, anybody familiar with public lands grazing knows that the BLM manages our public lands like Jeffrey Dahmer manages his personal relationships. Personally, I don't think cows belong out there at all. But this family has been grazing the same patch of land since the '30s - clearly grazing at a sustainable level. I'm not sure how much destruction I've sponsored by patronizing Utah Power, Mountain Fuel, etc.; but I'm in no position to lecture this poor family out on the range. The BLM would probably be content to declare the Danns in the wrong and then put off doing anything about it indefinitely, but a fellow by the name of Maynard recently moved in from Texas, bought up most of Crescent Valley and, in the true american tradition, has decided that those goddamn redskins have no right to occupy land which is desirable to a rich white male. It is Maynard who has been pushing the BLM to rectify the "abuse" perpetuated by the Danns. He has even stated publicly that the Dann's heifers have been seducing his bulls away from his own heifers (those Danns do have sexy cows, let me tell you). Currently, Maynard is allowing the BLM and local authorities to use his spread to base their cattle rustling operation. The Danns and their supporters have been reasonably successful in repelling this invasion by standing firm, spiking the roads (things that go "pop" in the night) and just by being right. But rightness alone can only go so far. The Danns need help. In my view, this conflict could easily go either way. We could turn up the heat enough so that the government will recognize the Shoshone right to live on that land. But if the cows are stolen, this family will have no livelihood and will probably end up on the public dole like so many other Native Americans. Last April, Carrie Dann went back to Washington D.C. to receive a congressional award for maintaining her cultural heritage. Now the BLM is moving in. It's rather like getting knighted by the king and then the gateguard throws you in the moat on the way out. The Western Shoshone Nation has issued a call for nonviolent activists to come out to the ranch in support of the Danns, or to donate money and supplies. for more information call 486-7657 ############################### Four Women Lay Down: Utah's First Hunt Sab At five a.m. on Saturday, October 17th, under a bright blue half-moon and in front of one hundred armed deer hunters, four women lay down and linked arms across the only road into City Creek Canyon. It was the opening day of the infamous Utah Deer Hunt, and at five a.m. the gate to the canyon was swung open to allow vehicle access. City Creek Canyon is a protected watershed that cuts through the Wasatch Mountains just behind the State Capitol. It is an area of golden, ancient alluvial hills and rocky outcroppings, Gambel's oak, Rocky Mountain maple and cottonwoods, an area that is popular for folks walking dogs, families pushing baby strollers (and if you hadn't noticed, there are lots of these in Utah), runners and hikers and cyclists. City Creek Canyon is a virtual backyard for hundreds of Salt Lake residents. Why deer hunters are permitted to hunt in this canyon, this protected watershed so popular among the people, is perplexing. Could it have something to do with the fact that deer hunters, although they comprise a measly 23% of Utah's population, are a powerful, NRA backed lobby...? The recreational killing of deer is primarily an animal-rights issue. If you will, imagine a mule deer, browsing meticulously among the high Wasatch hills, ridges cloaked in sultry pastels and outlandish golds and reds. The cool autumn senescence and serenity is drawn into his lungs with each suck of air,--it is crisp and clean. And then imagine the sudden invasion of the hills by people with guns. Imagine sleeping to fear, waking to fear, browsing against imminent hunger, but always, there is that fear of a human lurking with his gun around each bend in the thousand-year-old deer trail, behind clumps of oak or crags of granite. (Something smells strange. Then CLICK! BLAM! Sting of bullet explosion punches eardrums now running muscle ache and fatigue BLAM! and warm sticky blood flowing flowing flowing... oh, the parade of question marks that must march across the fading screen of the wounded deer's eyes...) I can anthropomorphize if I Want to. I know Deer now in a way I've never known them before. Elusive, they had always been the ones I had to watch through binos at a great distance. And as soon as they caught my scent or heard a leaf crackle beneath my foot, they vanished. I touch them now. I talk with them and bottle feed fawns with goat's milk and with damp rags I clean the streams of green feces from their hind-ends. I call to them, Nah-eh!, like a goat, and their ears rotate and track on me as I walk into their enclosure, and they bump my legs with their padded noses, trying to bring the milk down. I have watched them grow and their spots disappear, and their large blue eyes turn grey, then chocolate brown. Soon, I will hold back my friendly stroking of their soft fur, we will wean them from the goat's milk, we will lay out hay and grains...and watch them disappear into the woods. We will have to release them. But into what kind of world do we release these orphans? Deer are not an abstraction to me. They are individuals, my fourlegged siblings with long eyelashes and dainty muzzle-whiskers, slender necks and tiny hooves and long, prancing, powerful leaps, quadriceps rippling beneath their sleek brown fur. The Earth that gave birth to me, also gave birth to them. When I think of the Deer hunt, I automatically wince as I imagine somebody killing one of these orphans. I become angry. Why have I never thought to guard them? I feel a need to guard them from the kind of disrespectful killing exemplified by the average Utah deer hunter. There was a time when people hunted deer with reverence, and maintained a sacred relationship with Deer, and did not kill for sport or fun or trophy, but for survival. There are many Native American tribes that survived because their hunters were able (allowed) to kill deer to nourish the people through the desperate winters. Many tribes people still do. And many hunting rituals bear elements of apology, and the desire to commune with and appease a Being in the Spirit World. But the majority of hunters today--predominantly white men-seem to have no reverence for the deer. Now that this land must contend with Euro-American overpopulation and greed, bureaucracy and paper-gold, and the general lack of respect for the prey, the hunting act is a whole other ball of wax, to the detriment of the Deer, the land, and the native people who needed and still need Deer to survive--as a group of metabolizing, homeothermic individuals, and as cultures. The deer hunt is also an ecological issue. Contrary to mainstream beliefs, hunters do not serve the purpose of "wildlife management," for the simple reason that they do not hunt like the wolf or the cougar. Many are Headhunters, after the biggest and the best, and in this way, they are artificially disrupting the genetic pool of a species. In many areas, it has been scientifically documented that average deer sizes have decreased. Many herds are diseased, starving, sickly. If the hunters hunted like the wolf, the deer would be stronger, not weaker. And yet, the DWR holds that deer hunting is good wildlife management. This is ludicrous, a scientific fraud, and a breach of the public trust. When a hunter buys a permit for killing Deer, he/she buys into a system governed by the economic principle of supply and demand. She/he buys into the agency's agenda for altering the environment to produce more Deer, and more and more Deer need to be "produced" if the demand for killing them increases. Deer herds have been manipulated for scores of years to satisfy the needs of the Deer hunters. It is probably true what the hunters say: that North America has never had so many Deer as it has today. The obvious question for ecologists would be: Yes, but is this a good thing (for the Earth)? Habitat is altered to provide better Deer forage. How many times have we heard that clearcuts and Juniper-forest chaining are "good for wildlife"? We must realize the limitations of this announcement. It's not good for ALL wildlife obviously; it's good for elk and deer. And that's good for the government, whom the hunters pay to kill deer. Predators are often killed to protect the ungulate "resource." It's not just the dreaded livestock industry that would like to see bears, cougars, and coyotes extirpated; it's most of the big "game" hunters as well. One of the most blatant instances of predator murder for the sake of ungulate hunters was British Columbia's annual winter, aerial, wolf-killing program that was challenged by Greenpeace in 1983, the Sea Shepherd's Project Wolf in 1984, and by Friends of the Wolf/Earth First! in 1988. BC's "Kechika Enhancement Project" -- a euphemism for the government's wolf-killing, habitataltering program-- began in 1982 under the direction of former Environment Minister Tony Brummet. The Kechika valley lies just west of the Muskwa valley, which lies southwest of Fort Nelson, a town from which 35 trophy hunting outfitters run their businesses. Customers pay $5,000 to $25,000 to "bag" one trophy animal - an elk, a moose, a caribou or a big horn sheep. These ungulates live in the Muskwa and Kechika valleys, where their numbers are kept in check by the natural predator, the Wolf. However, outfitters view the wolf not as an integral part of the ecosystem, but as a thief, stealing merchandise (elk, moose, etc...) without paying. They further perceived the wolf as a competitor with the human hunters for the same prey animal. Politics and money and under-the table political favors got the outfitters of Fort Nelson a government-sponsored aerial wolf killing program. The chief wolf-killer, Dr. John Elliott, whose office was stormed by activists in February of 1988 (in Ft. St. John, BC), has boasted that he has personally killed over 1000 wolves. To the big "game" hunters, he is something like a hero. Because of the dedication of several dozen activists on skis, parachuting down into areas where poison-laced carcasses waited for wolves, singing in traveling roadshows, occupying Elliott's and then Minister of Environment Bruce Strachan's office, and filing that successful court injunction - and because of the warm Chinook winds that blew the hunt was canceled for four years. The point to this story is that even though this wolf kill was halted, predators are still being killed for the ungulate hunters, everywhere in North America, probably not far from where you live. That the deer hunters control deer "management" policy through the Division of Wildlife Resources has always been suspect to me. Letting deer hunters determine deer policy is something like letting Jeffrey Dahmer babysit your kid. Deer hunting is furthermore an issue of public safety. More than 1500 people a year are killed or wounded by hunters in North America. The case of Karen Ann Wood in Bangor, Maine, has become one of the most famous. She was killed by a deer hunter 130 feet from her own house, five feet within her own property line, because she was wearing white mittens and the hunter thought that she looked like a deer. He was armed with a .30-06 rifle, mounted with a scope. People blame Wood: why wasn't she wearing blaze- orange? Well, in October 1989, nearly a year after Wood's murder, Betty J. Maynard was shot to death by a hunter who was standing only 100 feet from her. The hunter fired his shotgun into her head and later said that she had looked like a deer. She was dressed in red and wearing a fluorescent orange vest. In the cold, moon-washed blue of the morning of October 17th, two of the four women wore blaze-orange caps with Earth First! stickers rubbed onto the fronts. They had Rhode Gear "Citadel" heavy-duty, extra-long bike locks tucked beneath their coats...the original plan was to lock their necks to the gate and to the post to prohibit any vehicular access up City Creek Canyon. The had reconned the scene with Kryptonite locks, however...and they didn't realize until the heart-pounding moment of slamming the gate shut and sitting down and trying to lock in, that Rhode Gear locks are about a quarter-inch NARROWER than the bona fide Kryptonites. They struggled with the locks and keys in vain as hunters, lined up in their cars and trucks, began to realize what the women were doing and jumped on them, wresting them away from the gate, tugging the locks from their numb fingers, yelling to the others, "Hey!! They're trying to lock us out!" The guard in the illuminated shack by the gate called the police. He reported "A VIOLENT SITUATION INVOLVING SIX ACTIVISTS AND ONE HUNDRED ARMED HUNTERS." For an awkward several minutes, there was a strange inertia as the four women and two men stood there in the pool of light from the overhead lamp, in the middle of the road at the gate. Adrenaline surfed their bloodstreams in the eye of the storm. "What do we do...?"--they sent whispers from ear to ear. Five o'clock came and the gate was opened. S. looked at W. and said, "Let's lie down." They dropped to the pavement softly, resolutely, along with A. and J. They linked arms together, feet pointing to the line-up of the hunters' revving vehicles. They looked up at the bright half-moon and stars, and whispered to each other. Headlights illuminated their boot soles and chins as they discussed a plan B that they hadn't planned on. "Let's not give our names or addresses when the cops get here. And let's keep quiet. Don't respond to their remarks, it'd only get us in trouble," they decided, for their own safety. It was obvious that they had put themselves into a vulnerable position. Several dozen hunters pushed forward to see what the holdup was all about. Four women lay on the pavement, arms linked, silent and not budging, holding strong to their beliefs and their physical positions. the two male activists deflected some abusive comments and finally retreated to the shadows. The DWR agent--also women--were baffled and confused as to what to do about the four protesters. A hunter suggested that they arrest them yelling, "You got badges!" And she said, "We're not cops." She seemed almost apologetic, adding, "But the police are coming." Banter went back and forth, with the most popular topics being "Human Rights" and "freedom" and "public roads" and "Bambi" and threats of violence towards the prone activists in the road. Some more activists showed up but the police took their time, which the activists decided was good: the longer their arrest was delayed, the longer the hunt would be delayed. The women watched the shooting stars flare across the early morning sky; they commented softly to each other that it was a beautiful morning; they said, Mother Earth, This is For You; they searched their souls for the words and prayers and tough warrior fibers that would hold them fast to the ground - solid, uncompromisingly solid. They tried not to laugh at the idiotic verbiage that was hurled in their general direction. When the cops showed up, the women were arrested for obstructing a roadway and resisting arrest (they'd held firm to their commitment to not give their names and addresses in front of the crowd of hunters). One of the cops was a bit anal but the other three were almost delightful, explaining that they were late getting to the scene because they had first climbed an overlooking ridge to scope out the "VIOLENT SITUATION" with binos before descending. (So,...even cops have to fear the trigger-happy fingers of hunters?!) They joked about how they couldn't find the code for obstructing a roadway, it so rarely happens. They passed their manuals back and forth, saying, "Can you find it? I can't find it." The arrestees made comments about how efficient bureaucracy is. The cops smiled and kept flipping pages. At the arraignment on October 29th, three of the women plead Not Guilty to both charges. Their pre-trial conference is scheduled for November 23rd. They see the action as only the beginning: they may pursue legislation that would close City Creek to deer hunting, and they hope to put the issue of killing deer on the front burner for discussion and humane resolution. The fourth woman, J., because she is under 18, will have her case reviewed in the juvenile courts. The women talked afterwards of the tremendous feeling of empowerment, participating in an all female action. A non violent, direct action of civil disobedience with an unambiguous message" DON'T KILL DEER, AND DON'T DO IT HERE. They delayed the hunt up City Creek for 25 minutes, which put the hunters 25 minutes away from where they had wanted to be at dawn, which gave the deer an additional 25 minutes to run and hide. S. said, "The women who lay with me on the road and waited and watched stars as the hunters hurled threats and paced, these are some of the bravest women I know." A. said, "(we were) risking both bodily harm and arrest...in protest of what we and many others...believe to be an inhumane, unsafe and unethical yearly ritual, the Utah deer hunt." And J. remarked that currently the environmental movement is dominated by middle- class white men and she'd like to see everyone get involved. At 17 years of age, J. said that she lay down that morning because she wants to help change perspectives on the killing of deer, and also on the role of women within the environmental community. And so I dedicate this piece to Women Warriors everywhere, and also to W., whose idea it was to blockade City Creek on the opening day of the Utah Deer Hunt, October 17th, 1992. My father, a fair-minded Utah attorney, taught me to stand up for what I believe in. How well any of us can actualize this ideal is difficult to say. Sometimes I think we respond in fits of humanitarian passion (having hopefully prepared ourselves psychologically); we are backed up against the proverbial wall with no choice but to speak from our conviction--through direct and non violent civil disobedience. In this moment of truth, disheartened and disillusioned with a system that has failed her promise of justice for all, our hopes sink like a stone in a deep black sea. Is justice served on the innocent recipient of a hunter's bullet to the heart? Or the deer for whom the bullet was intended? Or the deadly "predator" (coyote, et al) the system would systematically eliminate because she interferes with our own predatory ways? Gandhi taught an impressionable 60s generation the meaning of passive resistance. Gandhi...my 20th century hero. The likes of a Mahandis K. Gandhi afforded myself and three friends the courage to lay down our bodies in arm lock before a train of hostile paramilitary machinery, risking both bodily harm and arrest, with not one act of violence, not one insult or derogatory remark on our part. A class act...self-composed, self-dignified. Just as Gandhi would have done. We voted our consciences that moonlit night in protest of what we and many others, however silent, believe to be an inhumane, unsafe, and unethical yearly ritual--the Utah deer hunt. My father is now gone. So is Mahandis. But in the courageous few who stand in the face of an overwhelming opposition--and, I might add, gloriously--that fiery conviction lives on, and the dream of "humanity" moves one step closer to becoming reality. by Ann, one of the four women arrested on October 17th, 1992 Utah's First Hunt Sab ############################### A.D.C. Slamming the Door on the Public in Utah Scott Williams On Tuesday, November 24, I screeched my bumper bestickered heap into the parking lot of the infamous Utah Animal Damage Control Agency office. For months a group of individuals had tried to arrange a meeting with James Winnat, Director of the Utah office, to ask questions, search out justifications, and hopefully do some education of our own. Mr. Winnat had avoided us for a long time, but we had finally managed to get a commitment for a 1:00 PM meeting on this date. We came representing 500 individuals who had signed a "Petition to Control ADC" Our hopes and positive attitudes were in vain, however. For when we attempted to enter the Federal Government office we were met by a clipboard-toting man who informed us that we would have to show our driver's licenses and allow the information on them to be copied, before we could enter. Nonplused, incredulous and more than a bit offended, we looked towards Mr. Winnat, who had just emerged from his office with some other rotund, satisfied looking man with his thumb in his belt. Mr. Winnat confirmed our inquisitor's demands, telling us that names, addresses and phone numbers would not suffice, and that anyone who would not show her ID-even if it was because she didn't sleaze their enviro-eating tin beasty down there, and thus didn't have it-could wait in a car outside. Mr. Winnat said that recent attacks against the ADC across the country were the reason that we were being treated like criminals. We quickly pointed out that it was precisely this kind of treatment that led people to feel shut out and snubbed, and to act out in more extreme ways. Needless to say, we all didn't jump at the chance to let these thugs take a gander at the most personal form of identification we had. We were turned away, hopes dashed, positive attitudes soured, and worst fears confirmed. Mr. Winnat told us that direction came from above. He admitted after some quizzing, that there was no regional director, and that the regional secretary hadn't been ordering him around, but finally found a couple of scapegoats in Tom Nicholls and Stewart McDonald in the regional office in Denver. So I gave them a call. Mr. Nicholls admitted that he had just gotten off the phone with Mr. Winnat before I called. He also implied, that Mr. Winnat was full of it, that there was no policy of demanding that ADC visitors display identification, that we were singled out, that it was to protect the physical safety of the ADC office employees (???you mean the ones armed to the teeth???) and was all "legal". Makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside, don't it? The regional office wanted to know "why a few of us didn't just show our licenses and go into the office to get the meeting done?" (Typical response from those whose position of power makes them expect supplication.) I told Mr. Nicholls that being singled out and branded as untrustworthy from the get go didn't do much for the atmosphere of mutual trust, civility, and positive intercourse, and that until we could be treated like any other concerned citizen (read:greedy rancher) a meeting would be worthless. I got no response from the other end of the line. Nor did I get any indication of whether this "departmental directive" would be terminated anytime soon. Mr. Nicholls invited us to "try again," but could not assure that we would not again be singled out for special treatment (harassment). Why had we even bothered to meet in a civil manner with an agency as lawless and vicious as ADC? We were tired of hearing their rhetoric, and figured they were tired of hearing ours. And we had read in a recent ADC document titled "A Futuring Document for Animal Damage Control," that ADC's "vision" included "adhering to the highest ethical standards," that "public understanding of [their] work will come through proactive public relations," and that one of their primary goals was to "improve cooperative relationships with various publics to increase understanding...[and] enhance the public's understanding by aggressively communicating with...the public." Whew! Sounds good we thought, and we set up our meeting pursuant to this new "futuring document." Talk about aggressive communication, we were told in no uncertain terms that we were considered to be potential criminals, and we were turned away. Here are just a few of the things we wanted to ask ADC about: For one, we were concerned about an August 25, 1992 memo from the Deputy Chief of the (de)Forest (dis)Service to all regional foresters stating that ADC would be responsible for National Environmental Policy Act environmental analysis effective immediately. We wanted to know how ADC thought it was qualified to do NEPA analysis, especially since they have no experience, no jurisdiction over any land, no regulations for guidance, stark conflict of interest and a sordid past. Most of all, we wanted to know how ADC could possibly claim the ability to administer a law that, if nothing else, stands for the inclusion of the public in public landmanagement decision-making. We were turned away at the door. We wanted to know why ADC offices around the country were making it tough for the public to get information, and were even ignoring Freedom of Information Act requests. We were turned away at the door. We wanted to understand how ADC could possibly justify changing its name to Wildlife Services. The Futuring document states that an immediate goal is to "select a name and logo for the program that better reflects its mission." Like the United States "serviced" the Nicaraguans out these Orwellian tactics. We were turned away at the door. In the end, the experience has served one important purpose: it has confirmed the public's fears and has helped get more of ADC's cards out on the table. Like a bad virus, the ADC is mutilating in every way possible in order to avoid the recent serums that have been shot into the burly arm of the government by the public in an effort to send the agency along the way of smallpox. A virus is the perfect metaphor for the ADC. It has always been a sneaky, covert little agency, who's only mission is to kill, and who mutates on a regular basis in order to avoid detection or destruction. Like a virus, it has no turf of its own, and relies on "host" agencies like the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management to provide it with an arena in which to wreak its havoc. Covertness is important, for if it is beholden for what it is, forces will be amassed to eradicate it. Undoubtedly this has been the fear of the ADC, that the body politic will discover and expel it. For it has been periodically bounced around between the Department if Interior and the Department of Agriculture, and subdepartments in each, in order to make it tough for the public to get information or understand what ADC is or what it does. As the ability of public interest groups to inform the people has increased, the ADC has been forced to increase their obfuscating tactics--sometimes subtly, sometimes with audacious overtness. The Utah incident is an example such audacity. It shows that ADC is getting worse, not better; that it is an outlaw agency with no intention of being answerable or responsible to the public while it dumps oodles of taxpayer dollars into all out warfare, gruesome in detail and scope, against this nation's wildlife. Get involved by coming to Wild Utah Earth First! meetings: every Monday night, 7:00, at Cafe Mediterranean (542 E 400 S) or call 575 6331 or 262-0128 ############################### I knew I had to write this piece today if it was ever to be submitted to Bootleg, so as it always does when faced with a deadline, my mind escaped into a fantasy. This can be very bothersome in some cases because I sort of stare off in the distance and slobber all over myself, (but my mind is having a ball), then I have to forget about whatever I was trying to accomplish and clean up the mess. But this time I couldn't stop. This was one of my favorite fantasies. I've been drifting in and out of this one since my first backpacking trip with my father and brother at the age of seven. Of course it varies in detail, but the gist of the vision goes like this. I'm standing on a high cliff on a hot summer day, feeling a warm musky breeze blow through my hair.having killed a mule deer which is lying at my feet. My body is covered with a mixture of my own and the deer's blood. I lift the heavy body to my shoul I'm panting from exertion of just der and begin the trip over the red-rock cliffs to my home which is a cave in the side of a cliff, well guarded against any enemy and sheltering my family and clan from the elements. There my wife and children wait, and cheer when I return with a fresh supply of meat. The children chase me down the trail, laughing and pulling at the carcass. Wait. What's that sound? Is it a faraway storm warning us from a distance, running from another hunter? No, I wake up to see the pot boiling over on the stove. The one I was supposed to be watching while I wrote my usual prose. So, I clean up the stove with its boiled over potato mess and look over at the puddles of drool I've left while in my aboriginal trance. As I move to clean up the mess I wonder about how happy I always feel after this dream. I feel happy and clear-headed; unworried and unhurried. Did our neolithic forebears worry about getting enough money together to buy a bunch of worthless gifts for people you rarely see, just because it's a certain time of the year? Did they ever fret about getting up in the morning to go to a job they hated and was getting them nowhere? I think not! I secretly long for the peace of mind those people felt. They were at peace with nature and at peace with themselves. How wonderful that feeling must have been. But how can I achieve that personal tranquility in this world of planes and trucks. In this life with its worries of bills and global warming and is the damn car going to start this morning? Maybe the only way I can approach that Nirvana is to escape now and then to what's left of the wilderness. Escape to the desert and it's overwhelming science; to the deep forest, teaming with wildlife. That is what I attempt now, but just as I begin to slip away into some primal dreams, I'm awakened by some airliner overhead or some jerk who thinks I'd like to listen to Guns-n-Roses. Sometimes I can get close but never attain that escape (besides I have to get back to work tomorrow, have to buy more gas to get home). Unless the wilderness returns, I'm afraid we'll lose forever the beauty of living simply; living with nature, not in spite of it. Wilderness is the only hope for Earth. To hell with humans and their silly greedy problems. To hell with worries and money and jobs. I'm going back to that home in the cave. Back to the stone tools and pottery and bows and arrows. I'll clean up the drool later. David Barton ############################### Keeping Your Wigglies to Yourself Matthew Haun The god of the Old Testament promised us that in pain would women bring forth children (and the midwife/witch burners of the Renaissance made sure that was the case). What the Bible didn't specify is that all the possibilities surrounding pregnancy tend to be more difficult for women. Women bear the children; and they are usually stuck with the job of raising them as well. For men, it need be nothing more than a quick shot in the dark. Likewise, the female methods of contraception are more difficult (and some potentially dangerous). Moreover, none of these methods guard against the transmission of disease as well as putting a little rubber around the old lightning rod. This difference is especially apparent to those desiring permanent contraception. Tubal ligation is serious surgery. A vasectomy is easier than having a tooth filled at the dentist's: I know because I had one. You can contact Planned Parenthood for the gory details. Basically, the tubes carrying sperm to where they will join the flow of semen are severed. There is no other change physically or mentally (except you don't have to worry about getting anyone pregnant). You even get to keep ejaculating the rest of your semen (for those who like to make their own tofu). The operation takes about 30 minutes; and you walk away from the table. You need to take it easy for a day or so (the staff at the clinic told me of one guy who went dancing the night of his vasectomy and returned with a grapefruit where his testicles should have been). Within a week, I was running around as usual; although I did receive nervous little messages from the area affected which suggested that I wait to go mountain biking or hopping freight trains. Within two weeks, I was carrying 70 pounds over Lookout Peak. My shoulders screamed for mercy; but my cookies did not crumble. Clearly I was healed. I would like to say that the staff at Planned Parenthood were the most warm-hearted and compassionate people I have encountered in the medical profession (perhaps not much of a compliment, considering what one usually encounters). Moreover, the doctor who did my vasectomy hires out to Planned Parenthood regularly. In other words, he's done lots of vasectomies and knows what he's doing. It seems to be a real primal desire to raise a "chip off the old block." Doubtless, many features are passed on genetically. But most parents simply desire to have junior satisfy their own neuroses - a crap shoot at best. There is a great deal I can do to participate in the raising of children, including not spawning one more child who must be fed, clothed etc. Of course, as the moral crusaders are so fond of telling us, abstinence is the best solution to all these problems. They're right. But the love of women is sacred to me; and I will not be denied that by a bunch of blithering prudes who worship a corpse on a cross. So, like that old Alka-Seltzer commercial says: Snip! Snip! Gizz! Gizz! Oh what a relief it is! Yes indeed, you can take that to the bank (not the sperm bank).