Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers! - Shakespeare

The great old trees in the film Lord of the Rings, learned that their friends had been cut down and set off to confront the evil lord Sarumon, vowing revenge on those who "destroy all that is green and good in the world." Real life trees cannot flee the ravages of industrial forestry, nor can they confront ruthless CEO's. Their only protection is the love of humans who put their bodies in the way of bulldozers and chainsaws. Jeff Luers, (pictured here) whom we knew as Free, literally went out on a limb to build platforms 200 feet up in the canopy, so people could occupy and protect some of the last remaining virgin forests on the North American continent. The forest defense campaign was known as Red Cloud Thunder for the dazzling red sunsets and also for Chief Red Cloud who had successfully repelled the US cavalry several times in the 1800's.

Free had previously been involved in the Sierra Club and various lobbying campaigns and decided that taking direct action at the point of destruction would be the most effective defense. Over the last 250 years, 97% of America's original forests have been logged. For decades, the U.S. Forest Service has auctioned millions of acres of forests to the highest bidder, as billions of tax-dollars subsidized the timber industry. The Bush administration has struck the last nail the coffin by closing any "loopholes" that had previously allowed citizens to challenge timber sales in court. The last few tiny patches of old-growth forest would soon be replaced by the infinite McDeath culture. Beauty would vanished from the earth.

Growing up in New York, I understood why this soft spoken 20 year old from Los Angeles preferred the primeval lush forests of the Pacific Northwest to the toxic artifice of the modern world. Eventually hundreds of people came from all parts of the country and world to participate in the tree sit campaign. At night, you could hear the tree sitters from the ground but you could not see them. By moonlight, it sounded like the trees were trying to bum cigarettes and chocolate off each other. We listened, not just to requests for wool socks and hot coffee, but also to the secrets of 3.8 billion years of evolution that manifested in this intact eco-system rich in biomass and mega fauna. Once Free pointed to a nearby field of genetically engineered tree saplings planted by the Forest Service, and said, "someday they will call that a forest." He was good at communicating with the dejected rejected kids that would sometimes show up, sometimes addicted to alcohol or heroin, but as the forest worked its magic, their cravings would ease. Many learned how to climb up and supply food to the tree-sits.

When a police officer came to evict our small encampment, Free reminding the officer that we were on public property, said "you are a simple man with a gun. You have no authority over us!" One night we ran into the forest to escape the federal agents who patrolled the logging roads. It was hard to see in the dark as thick roots kept tripping me. Free was more agile and familiar with the terrain and could have easily gotten away, instead he stepped in front of the police officer about to apprehend me, which allowed me to hide behind a massive tree trunk. Free took the arrest so I could escape. I was bewildered as to why he would do that for someone he barely knew. Perhaps real life heroes are more humble and self-sacrificing than the ones in films. Still, none of us could have known back then just how much of a sacrifice Free would make, after all, he wasn't just a friend to us but a friend of the earth.

3 years later the tall trees still stood, but Free was not standing among them. He wanted to make a connection between America's gluttonous consumption and global warming. In June 2000, Free set fire to 3 SUV's at a deserted car dealership in Eugene, Oregon, with a fellow tree sitter named Critter who describes SUV's as "a status symbol for rich American consumers, who are killing more people on this planet than anyone else." Critter received 5 years in a plea bargain while Free had been given a 23-year sentence. The New York Times described Free as "a quiet 22 year old forest advocate" with "the longest sentence ever handed down in an eco-terror case." While attempted murder carries only a 7 and a half year sentence in Oregon, and first degree rape carries 8 years, Free was sentenced to spend more of his life in prison than he had spent outside, for an action that hurt no one, (until he was sentenced) and resulted in $40,000 worth of damage, covered by insurance. "To gain overtime," Tamara L. Meredith, Forest Service fire safety specialist, was arrested on 35 counts of arson in August 1998, after setting fires in the Umpqua National Forest. Meredith was only given 3 years, despite the threat posed to the responding 600 firefighters.

"We're the number one polluter in the world," explained Free in prison interview with Dateline Australia. "When you consider the role of SUV's in terms of emissions output, well, those are my reasons right there." As he lit the fuse under the truck, he remembered "growing up in L.A, days when I couldn't go out and play because the smog was so bad. I was 6 years old and I couldn't play outside because the air was hazardous· It's only gotten worst since." The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that annually 15,000 premature deaths, 350,000 cases of asthma and 1 million cases of decreased lung function in children are due to air pollution. Meanwhile the U.S. has increased emissions 13% over the past decade. "Whether you approve or disapprove of these tactics," explains Bron Taylor, author of the book Ecological Resistance Movements: the Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism, and professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, "they are forms of communication. What's the message? Wake up! Global warming is real. We are in denial. Our appetite for these gas guzzling vehicles is an ecological crime."

"Maybe a few more people are willing to listen now," said Free. If we really listen, we might hear what the earth is telling us with spiraling extinction rates, polluted trashed ecosystems. "Global warming is a weapon of mass destruction" because of the indiscriminate impact it will have on millions of human and non-human lives," writes Robert Jereski. Drought and desertification which accompany global warming, will "threaten the livelihood of over 1 billion people in more than 110 countries around the world," said Kofi Annan of the United Nations. The London-based Global Commons Institute, expects over two million deaths from climate change-related disasters in the next decade.

In March 2002, vast tracts of the Antarctic ice shelf, (pictured here) towering for several thousands years, crumbled like glass shards into the sea; a direct consequence of 200 years of industrial civilization's coal and oil burning, resulting in the hottest temperatures in recorded history. Goodbye baby seals, funny looking penguins and playful polar bears. Extinction is not death. It is the end of birth.

As politicians offer hollow speeches on the Titanic, Free and Critter tried to turn the ship around, except in real life, the icebergs are actually melting. One need not endorse arson as a tactic to recognize that the threat of global warming must be confronted. "What I did was an act of frustration," Free admits, "it was a result of having no other means I have tried, work. I can talk and talk, I've even met with some of the Congress people here in town, but nothing I have done has accomplished any change." Taylor explains that "a lot of activists feel shut out of political systems," and that "western liberal democracy is a mockery. Some have tried letter writing and lobbying and see that the damage is only getting worst."

The PROPERTY DESTRUCTION in question

Free stated to the court upon sentencing that, "I didn't do this because I enjoy property destruction. ·I'm frustrated that we are doing irreversible damage to our home planet. ·Forty thousand species are going extinct each year. Yet we continue to pollute and exploit the natural world." Faith, a young woman who built tree sits with Free, decries the 23-year sentence as "torture and cruel human rights abuse," adding, "the property destruction to be most alarmed about obviously, is the permanent and irreversible deterioration of our atmosphere." Edward O. Wilson, author of The Diversity of Life and The Future of Life, writes, "the Earth, unlike other solar planets· depends on its living shell to create the special conditions on which life is sustainable·" Wilson fears that "as many as half the planet's life forms could disappear in the 21st century" a result of human made impacts. According to the UN, 25-30 percent of all mammal and bird species will become extinct in the next 30 years. Many scientists believe we are witnessing the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago. James Kirchner of UC Berkeley, who analyzes fossil records, finds that "if we substantially diminish biodiversity on Earth, we can't expect the biosphere to just bounce back. The process of diversification is too slow," Kirchner said. "The planet would be biologically depleted for millions of years, with consequences extending not only beyond the lives of our children's children, but beyond the likely lifespan of the entire human species."

Will you go through fire for your beliefs - will your beliefs go through fire for you? - Nietzche

The U'wa people of Columbia say "Mother earth despite being violated, continues to sustain us, but few hears her cries as man destroys himself." Describing himself as a "direct action warrior," Rod Coronado, a Lakota native, who spent 2 years in jail for his animal liberation activities, explains, "we didn't wake up one day wanting to torch something· we realized if we didn't defend ourselves and that which we loved, we would die." Coronado's tribe would "burn sage and sweet grass was to cleanse our spirits of negativity. We burn that which destroys life, fire can be a purifying element." Citing the Boston Tea Party, Taylor points out that "this country has a long history of sabotage, whether you look at sectors of the labor movement or other political groups, trying to cost your adversary economically is nothing new. It was new when these tactics emerged in the 1980's and 90's to defend nature."

CORPORATE MEDIA as EVIL DO-ER

Most people remain completely passive in the face of overwhelming disaster because they don't understand what's happening. The truth is deliberately distorted or hidden by a mass media that does not represent the people or even reality except the reality which they force upon us. State and private capital control information flow, hence the entity known as the corporate fascist (cf) media. Citing the [cf] media's "failure to educate the public about the exigency and depth of the ecological crisis." Taylor says "activists begin to think, okay this is urgent. Even if it involves some risk, how do we get the message out?" Actions like Free and Critter's, Taylor explains, "can put on the moral radar of the mass culture, the kinds of insults to the environment that no one is adequately dealing with."

"The fossil fuel lobby and its ideological supporters have waged a relentless campaign of deception and disinformation to confuse people about the reality of warming-driven climate change," writes Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author of "The Heat Is on: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription. The Pulitzer Prize winning Gelbspan writes, "the main oil industry lobbying group, the Global Climate Coalition, has spent more than $63 million to combat any progress toward addressing the climate crisis."

Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting, (FAIR) a [cf] media watchdog group, reports "Representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon, Chevron and from corporate-backed think tanks got together to produce a "Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan," a copy of which was obtained by the New York Times (4/28/98). Part of the plan includes the creation of a $5 million think tank set up specifically to spread the word that we just don't know whether global warming is happening or not. Here's one point from the plan: "Produce, distribute via syndicate and directly to [cf] newspapers nationwide a steady stream of op-ed columns and letters to the editor authored by scientists don't expect to see these sources identified as agents of big oil. The plan is carefully designed to hide the fact that the main motive is not the search for truth about climate changes, but protection of the oil business's profits." Another report by FAIR exposes Dr. Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, a leading skeptic of global warming, who "sits on the board of directors of the Greening Earth Society, a group financed by the coal industry's Western Fuels Association," and asserts that global warming would improve life on Earth. "They've been very effective, because the [cf] press have reported them consistently," says FAIR. "The result? It has been very effective in muting any political response·"

Not only does the cf media lie about what's happening to the earth, but they unfailingly legitimate political repression as well. On April 7, 2002 the New York Times Magazine ran an article called "From Tree Hugger to Terrorist: The Color of Domestic Terrorism is Green" by Bruce Barcott. The article referred to Free and Critter as "violent firebombers" and made a distinction between "legitimate mainstream campaigns" and "dirty work of tree spiking, sabotage and arson." Barcott immediately launched into the events of 9.11, asking, "at what point does a devoted student of Islam volunteer to become a mass murderer? When does legal protest become terrorism?" Using a term like terrorist to refer to "people who do not intend to kill or maim people, allows the general public to accept political repression," says Taylor "when the state goes out to exterminate these activists."

In the same article, Barcott describes anti-abortion killers who murder clinic personnel as "radical activists." FAIR asks, "why are journalists 10 times more likely to give the label "terrorism" to an [environmentally motivated] arson than to an anti-abortion murder? In part, it's because there's been a well-funded PR campaign to promote the idea of "eco-terrorism" as a looming threat. Self-styled "eco-terrorism" experts with ties to polluting industries were frequent sources in stories·"

When every other commercial on TV is for a car or SUV, it is not a mystery as to why we lack any critical coverage. While the environmental movement has a whole has not been particularly successful in protecting the ecological integrity of the planet, (which is one reason we only have a mere 3% of the ancient forests remaining) Critter states, "we need to hit these corporations repeatedly without mercy for that is precisely what they are doing to our eco-systems."

PUNISHMENT: the (IN) JUSTICE SYSTEM

"I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, ·they who assert the purest right, consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State." -Henry David Thoreau on Civil Disobedience, 1849

"Frankly, I think he's being punished for his beliefs even though in a democratic society, we have a right to those," says Free's father John Luers, who adds, "He set one fire, he should have gotten one arson charge, not three." The judge disregarded the fire expert who testified that the burning SUV's did not threaten the lives of responding personnel. Free's 23 year sentence does not reflect actual harm done or the actual risk posed by the fire, instead his "amplified" charges, as his public defender describes them, demonstrate the legal principle of deterrence. He is not being punished for what he actually did but rather to deter or discourage actions with similar motivations. Taylor considers Free's sentence, "especially difficult for someone who thought they were acting altruistically, motivated by a life-centered ethic."

Free's final statement to the court was, "whether or not you consider my actions to be misguided, they stem from the love I have in my heart." In an essay titled Flaming Cars And American Justice, Yale University anthropology professor David Graeber writes, "some years ago it came out that many Ford vehicles contained a flaw in their engines which often causes them, when hit, to burst into flames. Ford was aware of the problem; they designed, and patented, a device that could have prevented it. But then they decided not to install it. Why? Ford executives calculated it would cost roughly ten dollars per car to fix the problem. Doing so, they estimated, would prevent the deaths of about a hundred people per year, and the maiming of another fifty. They then went on to calculate how many of the victims' families were likely to sue, how much money they were likely be awarded, and after totaling the figures, concluded that installing the device would be more expensive than simply absorbing the cost of lawsuits from future victims. Not surprisingly this is the kind of calculation they teach you to make in business school. Now think how Free torched a few empty trucks and the judge sentenced him to 23 years because, he claimed, Free's act might (under extremely unlikely circumstances) have harmed some firemen. These Ford executives signed a piece of paper which according to their own calculations would mean that hundreds of men, women, and children would be killed or crippled in flaming cars for years to come. And in doing so they were obviously not motivated by love, but the purest, heartless greed. Yet according to American law, they're not even criminals. Free however, was punished so severely precisely because he was motivated by higher feelings. For being inspired by a love of nature rather than by, say malice or greed. After all, if everyone concerned about the destruction of the planet felt they could go to the nearest car dealership and trash an SUV, it might end up doing some serious damage to the profits of... well, you know, people like those Ford executives."

"I openly admit that started the fire," says Free, "and that I destroyed the vehicles consciously and willingly, but I'm accused of trying to kill someone, of putting someone's life at severe risk. I KNOW I haven't done that." "When you look at white collar crime, like Enron, or violations of the Clean Air Act, or Endangered Species Act," observes Taylor, "rarely are there civil or criminal penalties levied, even when there is great cost both monetarily and to life." A case in point would be Warren Anderson, former CEO of Union Carbide, is responsible for the world's worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, India in 1984, which killed over 20,000 people, yet Anderson has never been prosecuted. Perhaps its just a lot easier to lock up a 22 year old tree sitter.

Working towards a degree in Sociology through an inmate education program, Free asks, "should I stay here for the duration of my sentence? My parents will be dead; some of my friends might pass away. The entire world and life that I've had up to this point will be non-existent 21 years from now, ·but I can't look back knowing what I know and having what I have in my heart and say that, I regret trying to make things better."

The REAL ECO-TERRORISM

While Free's actions stemmed from love of the natural world, George W. Bush's actions do not. In addition to his appalling environmental record as governor of Texas, Bush murdered several thousand civilians to install an oil pipeline in Afghanistan for his industry sponsors, supports ethnic cleansing in Palestine in pursuit of hegemony in the Middle East, is gearing up to massacre countless more Iraqis for oil, sabotaged the Kyoto Protocol, subsidizes SUV's, and yet; no one has called him an "eco-terrorist," and no court has dared hold him accountable.

"This administration has so blatantly turned the White House into the East Coast branch office of Peabody Coal and Exxon/Mobil," observes Gelbspan, adding, "the stabilization of the global climate requires at least a 70 percent cut in our emissions. That threatens the survival of the fossil fuel industry, the largest commercial enterprise in history." Exxon, with $63 billion, worth more than Peru or New Zealand, gave $1.376 million to Republicans in the 2000 election cycle - more than any other oil company. Bush promptly pulled the US out of the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the only international global warming treaty, paralyzed. While the Kyoto treaty suggests a mere 5-6% cut, it is still the only international pact dealing with in fossil fuel related emissions.

Despite Bush's recent gum flapping about funding hydrogen cars, governments currently spend 250-300 billion dollars every year subsidizing fossil fuel industries. Kalee Kreider of the National Environmental Trust said "lack of targets for renewable energies at the recent Johannesburg Earth summit, was a victory for Bush's supporters." Groenfront, the Netherlands based environmental network argues that "state and corporate establishments came together at the earth summit, to make the world believe that development would now be sustainable, when in fact their profits are what they are most interested in sustaining." A Greenpeace report on the recent Earth Summit declares that "flagrantly unsustainable practices continue, unfair, unregulated and unpunished, ... as the world's governments mumble vague commitments about saving the planet which they do not intend to implement·this really is our last chance to save the planet."

Alan Featherstone writes in Resurgence Magazine, (April 2002) "we are now in the terminal phase of this culture which has come to dominate the whole world. ·the contradictions become more extreme as in· the increasingly obvious insanity of the fixation on unlimited economic growth on a finite planet." Canadian geneticist David Suzuki states in the same article, "the ecologically destructive path we are on is as if all of humanity is in a giant car heading towards a brick wall at 100 per hour and every one in it is arguing about where to sit. There are a few screaming to put on the brakes and turn the wheel but they are locked in the trunk." (Or in Free's case, a maximum security prison.) "We are living on a planet with limits and we are now bumping up against those limits," warns Gelbspan adding that "the failure of the western world to deal with the ecological crisis amounts to bio-political terrorism."

SOLIDARITY

Rod Coronado notes that "they used to call us blood thirsty savages and now they call us eco-terrorists. We are still fighting for the same thing." As the destruction of the natural world intensifies, so does the political repression of those directly confronting the sources of environmental damage. By inflating Free and Critter's arrest, the nearby Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force could justify their bloated counter terrorism budget. The FBI called Free and Critter "eco-terrorists" and "domestic terrorists." The term "eco-terrorism" Taylor says, "originated in timber industry public relations firms, and was adopted by law enforcement and then uncritically appropriated by the mainstream media." David Helvarg, author of The War Against the Greens, writes "it is easy for a polluting industry to make itself look good by pointing to an eco-saboteur and calling them a terrorist, to distract the public from their own destructive practices."

As the NY Times reporter learned after visiting a clearcut, "it occurs to you that recycling beer cans ain't gonna get the job done." The last of the ancient forests will fall to the infinite appetites of capital unless the environmental movement becomes realistic about the power it has or does not have, and evolves its tactics accordingly. While the massive anti-war outpouring gives some idea of our potential numbers, there is little hope that we will reverse current consumption patterns or achieve the democratic control necessary, in time to make the drastic changes needed to effectively protect our planet from further degradation. The earth dies, the powerful lie, the most courageous among us, are buried alive. A recent pencil drawing Free did in prison shows a great wise owl protecting a forest from a bulldozer, like he once did. Behind the owl's wide spread wings, are an elk and a bear with big eyes, and a wolf howling at the sky. Underneath he has written, "One Planet, One Future, Act Now." Free, clear and direct as always.

He asks us to, "· look at the definitions of the words, "eco is short for eco-system, and Webster's definition of terrorism is the political use of terror and intimidation. If you put those two together, ·you start to see companies that are destroying and polluting as eco-terrorists. I like to think of myself more as an eco-defender."

Phil Berrigan who once burned draft files with napalm during the Vietnam war, wrote in a letter from prison that "the bystanders are the most curious; they ·stay home safe enough if compliant enough. They can't be charged with taking part in any evil act; they watch as evil proceeds. The act of carrying a club or gun or bomb - is an act of brutality; but the act of turning away, however empty-handed and harmlessly, remains an act. Indifference grows lethal. · Why else is this government able to imprison so many for so long ·victims are without allies· where is the outcry?"

Free has just filed his appeal in hopes of reducing his 23-year sentence. While corporations & the Bush regime have armies of lawyers to shield them from accountability, Free cannot afford such "justice." Please donate to Free's legal fund and voice your outrage so Free can soon return to the forests he fought to protect. Prison is an extremely lonely and dangerous place. Letters & books are greatly appreciated by Free and Critter. See FreeFreeNow.org

All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. - Chief Seattle

By torching 3 SUV'S - Forest Defense Activist Jeff"Free" Luers and a fellow tree sitter named Critter tried to wake people up making a statement about the link between blind consumerism and global warming. They fought ecological destruction, We must NOT let the State get away with robbing Free of 23 years of his young life. Prison is an extremely lonely and dangerous place. Letters & books are greatly appreciated. The prison will reject mail addressed to "Free" Use his legal name. Please Write to: Jeff Luers, inmate # 13797671 Oregon State Penitentiary 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310 Free just filed his appeal in hopes of reducing his absurd 23-year sentence! While corporations & the Bush regime have armies of lawyers to shield them from accountability, Free cannot afford such "justice."

*** Support for legal costs badly needed! To donate to Free's legal fund, read Free's writings, or correspond, please see: FreeFreeNow.org