B U Z Z K I L L salt lake's occasional anarchist rag -Scott Williams Some wise person once said that there are two things that the public should never see made, sausage and laws. During its latest session, the Utah State Legislature unabashedly combined the two practices, blindly passing laws that make sausage of Utah wildlife management, and shoving them down the throats of a repulsed and gagging majority of Utahns. On February 9, room 303 at the State Capitol was packed to overflowing by citizens concerned about a bill, introduced by rural Representative Tom Matthews, that would require the barbaric practice of hunting Utah's black bears in the spring. No one really thought that this outrageous and audacious bill would have a chance, but interest was piqued by the curiosity of how the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee would deal with such a blatant abuse of legislative process. I think few were prepared for the display of ineptitude that ensued. No one really knows how many bears inhabit our pretty straight state. The Division of Wildlife Resources estimates between 800 and 1,000. What we do know is that a tiny minority of Utahns who want to kill black bears have had their way for many years. Playing loose and fast with the English language, this group has claimed the god-given right to "hunt" Utah's bears. But, since bears are relatively sparse and are far too astute to be seen by any humans if they don't care to be, bear killers use means that make a bear "hunt" akin to "hunting" slugs with beer and salt. In the spring, a sow bear emerges from her den where she has been hibernating for up to six months, during which time she may have even given birth to two cubs! She is damn hungry. Following her keen olfactory senses, she is drawn inexorably toward what turns out to be a pile of doughnuts, pig guts and other sundry stinking trash that has been piled in the forest. As she roots around in the mess, an arrow sings from a blind in the nearest tree, and rips into her side. As she tries to flee, another follows. And another. If she is lucky, enough arrows will have found their mark to kill her before she escapes, mortally wounded into the forest. Her cubs, which she had sent up a tree as a natural precaution, will die a slow death of starvation. This practice is called baiting, and is the most common method of "harvesting" bear in the spring. Another method employs the use of hounds (often radio- collared) to chase a bear until it finally seeks refuge in a tree, whereupon the wily "hunter" trots up and - if the bear is enough of a trophy - shoots it out of the tree. According to independent polls, 75% of all Utahns (including 45% from hunting households) oppose such practices. No other state terrorizes its bear population with the array of tactics and seasons that Utah does. However, the Utah Wildlife Board, which has the authority to decide the appropriate policy of bear "management," has routinely preserved the status quo. That is until last fall, when the Board simply could no longer justify a spring bear hunt, and abolished it. Back in the hearing room, things were tense. Representative Matthews had been allowed to present all manner of testimonials, from rural ranchers claiming that us damn city slickers had no bizness tellin' them what they could do, to rural county commissioners who trotted out a parade of horribles while asserting that the vicious killers would soon be eating everyone's children if the spring hunt were abolished. While sometimes heart-rending, sometimes pitiful, and often quite entertaining, all of this testimony had one thing in common: it was entirely irrelevant. For over ten years a body of supposedly trained professionals with the properly delegated, lawful authority to make decisions regarding the management of fur-bearing wildlife in Utah had endured hour after grueling hour of hearing all of the relevant biological facts, professional opinions, political pressure and fiery rhetoric from all sides. And after hours of careful deliberation, the Wildlife Board had, year after year, decided to maintain the status quo. The bear hunters championed these decisions. But in 1992, the Board no longer felt that it could justify an allowance of a spring hunt. Suddenly, the once revered experts became traitors, and with a we'll-show-them cavalier, House Bill 58 was introduced to nullify the Board's decision. A show of hands in the hearing room made clear that many people wished to testify, and that they were opposed to H.B. 58 by a margin of over 3 to 1. Mine was among the raised hands. Ooh oohing like Arnold Horshack trying to get Mr. Kotter's attention, I wanted to point out that this was neither the time or the place to hear anything about hunting bears in the spring; that the only relevant issue was whether or not the legislature was in any way the proper place to consider micro-management of bears in Utah; and that the answer to that question must be a resounding NO! But my frantic hand wasn't seen at the back of the room by the aging, all-male committee members in the front. And despite the fact that Bob Valentine himself, as Chairman of the Wildlife Board, testified to precisely my concerns, the Committee perfunctorily and with little further testimony, passed H.B. 58 out. The only thing more incredible and disheartening than the goings on in the Committee, is the fact that H.B. 58 was later passed into law. *** editor's note: HB 58 did not get passed into law. ***Somehow many people had come to erroneously believe ***that it had been passed. The error was found just ***days after this was distributed. A correction was ***printed in the next issue. I decided when making the ***ascii text version of this rag, that I would correct the ***error here. Unfortunately the news that follows is true. A slew of other such bills also became law. They allowed everything from year round, unlimited hunting of foxes, skunks and woodchucks, to nighttime spotlight hunting of foxes, coyotes and raccoons, to the killing of deer and elk when farmers or ranchers complain that the animals are eating their hay. This management coup by a small group of Utah legislators, representing a tiny minority of Utahns, is a declaration of war against Utah wildlife and wilderness and the individuals involved in its defense. ############################ Excerpts from a speech by Kamal Hassan of the New African People's Organization, given April 27,1991. On August 1, 1989, approximately 80 LAPD officers attacked 50 black people on the street in our community, at 39th and Dalton. They completely destroyed four homes. They took people's clothing, put it in the middle of the floor and poured bleach on it. They wrote graffiti on the walls saying "LAPD rules." They broke all the windows in the houses, destroyed dishes, took food out of the refrigerators and threw it all over the houses, ripped out plumbing and left the place under water. They completely destroyed staircases, making it impossible for people to get to their homes. They swept a two block radius around the residences, grabbing every young black person they could see - coming out of a liquor store, riding a bicycle, or driving a car down the street. They put them all in one yard and beat them for about 30 minutes, then handcuffed them and threw them on top of each other into a police van. They drove the van around and around for about an hour before pulling into the Southwest Precinct and making a gauntlet of police officers. They made 30 or 40 black people come out of the truck and walk the line. They told them they had to whistle the theme song from the Andy Griffith television show. If they didn't whistle or they messed up, they were going to beat them. They got them into the station house, beat them again, and forced them to sign statements that they had not been harmed by the LAPD in any way. Also that night, a woman who was six months pregnant was forced to lie on her stomach for two hours. This brutality induced labor and she ended up giving birth to her baby three months prematurely. Gates' response to this? There was no response. Due to suits brought by some of the families, two officers have been suspended. The damage done to the homes in the area was so extensive that the Red Cross came out to provide aid to the victims. The beating Rodney King got is something that goes on in Los Angeles every single night, and I would bet my life that it is happening right now somewhere. The only thing unusual is that it was on tape. One of the things that has been discovered through the organizing around the King incident is that there are a lot of white supremacist gangs in the police department. They have one called the West Side Whiteys in West L.A. There is one called the Vikings, and there's the Grim Reapers. These are gangs of police officers who have ties to local white supremacist organizations that are out on the streets beating, maiming, and killing our people, and they have nothing to fear from the law. ############################### Day of Outrage against the Forest Service April 21 at the Utah State Forest Service offices in Ogden protest, street theatre and general bellyachin' in disapproval of this destructive and corrupt bureaucracy call 621-6509 for more information ############################### URGENT CALL TO ALL INDIGENOUS NATIONS AND ACTIVISTS Join us as resistance builds throughout the indigenous nations here and abroad in response to the unjustified imprisonment of Western Shoshone elder Clifford Dann. THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT, WESTERN SHOSHONE DEFENSE PROJECT, AMERICAN PEACE TEST, CITIZEN ALERT, NEVADANS FOR PEACE, and other indigenous rights organizations and supporters have begun nation-wide actions and demonstrations in solidarity with Clifford Dann, Leonard Peltier, and all indigenous and political prisoners. A demonstration and vigil continues every day from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., sunset, at the Washoe County Detention Facility in Reno, Nevada, where Dann is being held without bail. On March 4, 1993, Western Shoshone elder Clifford Dann, brother of Carrie and Mary Dann, was taken to Washoe County Detention Facility to await sentencing on May 17th; the minimum sentence he can receive is 35 months imprisonment. On March 3, Clifford Dann was convicted of assaulting a federal officer while trying to free wild mustangs and Western Shoshone nationalized horses during the Bureau of Land Management's militarized raid on the Western Shoshone Nation. Through November 19-24, 1992, the BLM invaded militarily the Western Shoshone Nation in Crescent Valley, Nevada, stating its intention to round up "unauthorized horses" found grazing on "public lands". BLM Agent Joe Morris confirmed during the trial on March 2 the rounding up of wild horses, in violation of the BLM's own Federal Wild Horse and Burro Act. Two horses were killed and 269 were reportedly rounded up, of which 40 were tended by the Danns and 229 were wild. Clifford Dann was injured while trying to block confiscation of the horses on the first day of the round up. In protest of the theft of the horses he dowsed himself with gasoline and threatened to ignite himself, declaring, "by taking our livestock and our lands you are taking away our lives." Federal officers then assaulted him with fire extinguishers, and as they wrestled him to the ground one official is recorded saying "break his fucking arm if you have to." During the trial, which began on March 2, During the trial, which began on March 2, Clifford refused to put up a defense, holding his ground in his beliefs that the U.S. Federal Court has no jurisdiction over him or any other indigenous person or nation. He is innocent of the charges brought against him, but to participate in the court system would mean accepting the United State's claim of jurisdiction over him; win the battle, but lose the war. Clifford now waits in a prison cell for sentencing. It is our turn now to mount the barricades and defend what he is fighting for: the survival , the freedom, the love and hope for sovereignty of the Western Shoshone Nation and way of life; the right of all people to self-determination. IMMEDIATE AID NEEDED IN THE SURVIVAL OF THE DEFENSE PROJECT This is an urgent call for support and action. The recent imprisonment of Clifford cuts into the heart of the Dann family's way of life and the defense of the Western Shoshone Nation. He is a key figure in the operation of the ranch, without him, his responsibilities now fall on the Dann sisters, Carrie and Mary. This, coupled with the loss of livestock in the November raid by the BLM, and the depletion of funds the ensuing resistance caused within the Defense Project, leaves the Dann ranch and its Western Shoshone nationalized livestock in a very vulnerable position. Still, Carrie insists on releasing the cattle into the security zone this spring. It is inevitable that the BLM will follow up it's horse roundup with a roundup of the cattle and the remaining horses. BLM helicopter have been spotted lately in several areas, like patient vultures circling the valley. With a negative budget, crippled ranch, and a handful of remaining activists we will make our stand, ever peacefully, when the feds and the BLM move in. All are asked to rally behind Clifford's strength and that of the Dann sisters. for more information call buzzkill ############################### buzzkill classifieds --buzzkill meetings are now and then, call 486-7657 for more information. send donations, letters, poetry, submissions etc. to: buzzkill, 360 E Edith Ave., SLC, UT 84111 --Utah Activist Network meets every monday, 7 p.m. at Cafe Mediterranean (542 E 400 S). call 534-3322 --Wild Utah Earth First! meets every monday, 7 p.m., at Cafe Mediterranean (542 E 400 S). 575-6331, p.o. box 510442, SLC, UT 84151 --salt lake IWW meets on the third saturday of each month. call 485-1969 for more info. p.o. box 520514, SLC, UT 84152-0514 --Utah Peace Test meets on the third thursday of each month, 7:00, at the Quaker meeting house (161 E 2nd Ave) call 596-1905 for more info, p.o. box 11416, SLC, UT 84147 for more information about Food Not Bombs call 486-7657 --Leonard Peltier Support Group/SPIRIT meets on the first and third monday of each month, 7 p.m., at Cafe Mediterranean (542 E 400 S) call 272-9128 for more info, p.o. box 9401, SLC, UT 84124 --Queer Nation and ACT-UP meetings are every tuesday, 7 p.m., at the Stonewall