No Pepper Spray on Nonviolent Protesters

No Pepper Spray on Nonviolent Protesters

This may be a strange way to do this, but I am hoping that this important case gets some wider exposure than just northern cali, so I wrote a letter to one of my new favorite radio people, Randi Rhodes, who I listen to as often as I can on Air America Radio. SO for context I will explain that Randi was goin' off earlier this week about the problem with the media not letting the real news out in this country, and about how Americans need to start taking responsibility for it by looking outside US media sources to stay informed and take action to organize against all of this.

HI Randi,
I heard you talk on Monday about the need for us all to "look it up!" regarding where we get our news. I couldn't agree more and often visit the Guardian and the Independant for my news, as well as flashpoints.net, democracy now! and guns and butter on kpfa and community radio station news programs around the country whenever I am out of town.

I am inspired by your challenge that we should all have the courage behind our convictions to actually get and stay informed and organize as unions and such. A group of young people I know are a great example. They are known now as the "pepper spray 8" and they were tortured for having courage behind their convictions, not at guantanamo or abu grahb, but in California, in 1997. Their lawsuit against the officers involved started this week in San Francisco.

As young people in Humboldt County, they could have believed what the local media and even their own teachers in school told them...that it is okay to cut every last old-growth tree, even while ecosystems are collapsing around us, species are going extinct each day, and people's lives and homes are being threatened directly by mud slides and floods caused by irresponsible logging. But they didn't. They looked it up. They went out and studied forestry and law for themselves and they take timber companies to court, lobby congress and when that does not work, they do civil disobedience. They became so effective, that the cops in Humboldt got desperate and decided to try torture in 1997. The Humboldt County Sheriffs started applying pepper spray directly into the eyes of several young activists who were sitting passively on the floor, locked together by metal bars. This is a tactic routinely used to call attention to the issue when all else has failed. They were threatening no one, and had fully expected to be arrested if they refused to unlock, the typical penalty for such actions. But they did not expect to get tortured.

You see, people who get their news from FOX are quick to say, well, if these kids could unlock and they don't, shouldn't the cops be allowed to do whatever they want? I mean why do these protesters have to be so extreme? But ironically, the US news media will only cover the efforts of activists if there is some conflict or controversy, so by getting arrested, they get on the news. Now, if FOX and others would simply report the ACTUAL NEWS:

- that a Texas company MAXXAM came in and took over a small family-owned timber company Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO)
- MAXXAM ran PALCO, and the community around it into the ground, along with the job market and the natural environment, and then sold the least economically valuable timber to the taxpayers at such a ridiculous price that they made more money than if they had logged it (Headwaters Forest)...

well, I think you get my point--when it gets this bad, we have to do something. And when our kids stand up to the man, they shouldn't be tortured. period.

If we allow this to go unchallenged, where will it end? How can we allow this when there is a history of FBI violating the civil rights of activists (like Judi Bari who won a 4 million dollar settlement against the FBI and the Oakland Police) and using laws like the PATRIOT Act to round up immigrants who have done nothing wrong and have nothing to do with terrorism. The writing is on the wall.

You can see photos online from the video of young protesters brutally tortured with pepper spray by Humbold Sheriffs, who, like the officers in abu grahb, saw fit to record their sadistic adventures. See for yourself at http://www.nopepperspray.org/photos.htm.

The "Pepper Spray 8" are suing the cops again this week, for the third time, to put an end to torture of peaceful activists and protect our civil rights. The first two attempts ended in hung juries, but this time they have the same legal team that won Judi Bari's lawsuit against the FBI, and I believe they will win this time. Let's just hope there are at least eight level-headed Americans who "look it up" every once in a while, and that they are the jurors chosen yesterday to decide the fate of protest and chemical weapons in these times.