Pigs are Beautiful Creatures Date Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 04:00 PM PST Topic Experiences July 28, about ten in the morning. The sun is just barely making it over the top of the ridge above us, driving off the horrible flies that persecute us in the shade. Burnt trees mingle with giant green old growth, while tons of raspberries grow beneath. I am sitting on the road, putting finishing touches on a walking stick I’m making. About two hundred feet down the road is a slash pile and a rock wall. Then about 50 feet behind me is another slash pile nestled under a web of ropes. These ropes lead off the road up to a platform 70 feet in the air. A red-headed girl named Kay Pittwald lives there on a single sheet of plywood. I admire her courage, not just being high up in the air, but I know she’ll probably be arrested if the cops try to take it all down. “CAR!” yells the girl in the platform. We become anxious at the sound of that word. It could be Freddies (Forest Service cops) driving down the road. Then they come into view. Two cop cars. Then three. Four. Six. The cop cars just keep coming. Some are unmarked; some are sheriffs; others are Forest Service pickups or Suburbans. Twelve in all. Those of us on the ground walk out to meet them. They put up a police line between the slash pile and our cars and tell us to get on the other side. We don’t want to get arrested, so we comply. Achilles drives to the town of Agness, eight miles away, where the nearest payphone is at. He’ll let the outside world know that we’ve got company up here. Meanwhile, I’m copying down the license plates of all the cop vehicles. A front-end loader drives by and my heart sinks. The mechanical beast effortlessly pushes the slash pile and the rock wall out of the roadway. It then drives on around the curve to tackle the rest. I hear chainsaws and the rumble of the ‘dozer in the distance by the platform. All hope is gone by now, but we try to cheer up Kay over the radio. “We love you, Kay!” “Keep it wild forever!” “How do you know when a cop is lying? His lips are moving!” We get some pots and pans out of my car and begin a little drumming circle to raise morale. Apollo, a photographer for the New York Times, is talking with a cop at the police line. He’d like to get in and take some pictures, but the cops aren’t willing. He refocuses his attention on us, snapping some pictures of us lounging about on the side of the road. A butterfly lands on Artemis, and he takes a picture of her. We see far off that they have a cherry-picker and are lowering the platform. A million “if only…”s run through our heads as we know the structural design of the platform should have been more bulletproof. We had left our stuff behind when the cops came, so we had asked the cops if we’d be allowed to enter the crime scene and get our gear. Now that the platform was lowered, they said that they would allow us to do so, as long as we gave our real names and contact info. We were suspicious, but they said it was so that if anything was stolen, they could pin down who took it. Yeah right. So Artemis, Apollo, and I volunteered to get everyone’s stuff. We were led down to the base camp by a couple of cops. Apollo got his stuff and walked back to the road. I was next. I grabbed what I could, claimed it as mine, and headed back toward the road alone. A couple of cops stopped me on the way and asked me to put down my stuff. I did, and they arrested me on Interfering with an Agricultural Operation. “I’M GETTING ARRESTED!!!” I yelled out, to warn Artemis about the cops. THOSE FUCKIN’ PIGS TRICKED US!’ I thought as I was led up to the road. They patted me down and put everything in plastic bags. As I was led to a police car I walked past Kay, sitting in the backseat of a cruiser. I waved to her, and she had a big smile on her face. No pig was gonna keep us down. Apollo was already in the car, and he was fretting really bad. I felt sorry for him, an innocent photographer caught up in all this. But pigs will be pigs. I was quiet for the most part, just taking the whole experience in. As we drove past our friends, I waved. I was glad they were safe and I didn’t want them to worry too much about me. At the station, they took my belt, bandanna, and boots. My shorts were a little bit large without the belt and so I had to pull them up constantly. We sat in the holding cell for a while until they got around to booking us. We got dinner, but the girls went on a hunger strike. I had already started eating, so I just finished it. (Except for the really nasty ground beef stuff… fuckin’ animal killers) I got a set of orange scrubs and sandals, showered (I was really dirty…), and they took my fingerprints. Then I was put in a cellblock with Apollo and a dude named Odysseus. Odysseus got arrested for driving with a suspended license. He’d been trying to get back to his wife in Crescent City, but without any ride, he had been forced to drive himself. And as luck would have it, he was driving while black, too. Odysseus knew the whole system pretty well, and he answered most of our questions as to what was going to happen. The next day I was brought into a packed courtroom with the two girls. Most of my friends on the outside were in that courtroom. I smiled at a few, but for the most part behaved. I retained a public defender and was returned to my cell. I spent seven long days in that jail. There was little to do besides sleep and eat. That morning I started fasting in solidarity with the girls, and I didn’t eat for two days, which made the time go by even slower. The food they served was unappetizing anyway, with major meat portions in every meal. After ending my fast, I traded with Odysseus for vegetarian portions and gave him the animal flesh. Every day I called my legal support person, Athena, back in town. She was an important source of news and advice, since my public defender was not very experienced in jail solidarity. She was wonderful, always giving me a kind ear and making sure I was okay. Calling her was the highlight of every day for me and really kept me going. Every afternoon we were let out for an hour of exercise. The exercise area was just a larger box than our cellblock in which to pace around in. We got to see the sky, though, which was heartening, and I heard the cries of gulls on the beach just a block away. Sunday night I received some books, which were a godsend. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was my favorite. When you have a lot of time on your hands, a book like that is perfect. I read it slowly, reading a chapter at a time and thinking about it. [pagebreak] The next day the judge gave me a conditional release to sign. Before the action, I had been told that I should not accept any conditions, since 1) They would be forced to either speed up the trial or to release me without the conditions; 2) They infringed on my rights (Cannot enter any public lands in the whole United States, cannot leave the state, cannot go within one mile of logging operations, must be a good citizen, etc.); 3) If I signed the paper, they would be encouraged to do the same thing to other activists down the road. I was pretty worn down from those seven days in jail, but I wanted to stick with the girls and not budge. I tried calling Athena for clarification, but her phone was not working. They called me out to sign the paper and I refused. The sheriff growled at me and said that if I didn’t sign, I wasn’t going to get out at all. I might even be held in contempt of court. I still refused and returned to my cell. I was really confused; I wondered if I did the right thing - what the girls were doing - if I had slit my throat. Later that evening I heard from my lawyer that the two girls had signed and they were out. I told her I wanted to get out, so she filed a motion to reinstate my release. I signed, and got out the next day. Kay’s release ordered her to stay in Gold Beach. Tiny Gold Beach, population 1,900. None of whom Kay knew. She had nowhere to stay, and very little money. So Kay slept on the beach and made meals from dumpsters. Every day she dutifully reported to the sheriff station. Only near the end of last month was she able to go to Ashland (after much badgering of the judge by her lawyer). She still can’t go to school in Bellingham, and her life is on hold thanks to this asshole judge. I received two plea bargains. One reduced the charges to disorderly conduct, but had a year and a half of probation. I still couldn’t go in the forests that I love, and I would not be allowed to make contact with any of the other co-defendants. The second offer was a diversion. If I was a good boy for six months, they’d wipe my slate clean. No record, no nothing. Except that I still couldn’t go in the forests, I couldn’t contact the other co-defendants, and the DA would probably subpoena me to testify against the two girls. I was not quite sure what I should do. I could live with the second one, but I did not want to rat out my friends. Then came the tiebreaker: Kay’s lawyer was arguing that Kay should be allowed to go to school. The district attorney had attended that same school and had no objections. But the judge was determined to keep Kay in Oregon. He allowed Kay’s lawyer to argue her position, but made it clear that he was not going to change his mind. This judge was an asshole, plain and simple, and I wasn’t gonna play his game. I pled not guilty and joined my friends in the preparations for trial. My trial date is set November 9th. We’re putting everything we can into this, and we’re not gonna settle. This blockade was in the Indi timber sale, part of the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. The area burned back in 2002 and so they want to make money by logging the dead trees and labeling it as ‘restoration’. This area has evolved with fire over thousands of years. Post-fire ecosystems are a vital part of this environment. There are whole classes of plants and animals that exist solely for this type of ecosystem. Only 5% of our ancient forests have been left untouched. This is part of the five. And so the Indi blockade went up to stop logging. It only lasted a few days, but it sent a strong message to any potential bidders for these sales. Last Thursday they began cutting the Horse timber sale. In response, 30 people formed a human blockade on October 4. They kept loggers out for about five hours. Only one person was arrested, and he’s now out on bail. Second Note: I used the word pigs repeatedly in a derogatory manner. I recognize that pigs are beautiful creatures deserving of our full respect, but I lacked a better word to describe the conniving bastards that tricked me and my friends. Names have been changed to Greek mythos to protect their identities. I tried to keep the names as similar to their personas as possible. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=726