Chapter 9 : And they Spewed Out their Hatred

By Steve Ongerth - From the book, Redwood Uprising: Book 1

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“We are witnessing the biggest assault in 20 years on the remaining ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest, and the rhetoric could hardly be more Orwellian as far as the environment is concerned.”

—North Coast Environmental Center director Tim McKay, June 1988 [1]

“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!” shouts Oz, the Great and Terrible in the theatrical version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, just after Dorothy’s dog, Toto, pulls aside the screen exposing the simple man-who-would-be-wizard. As elaborate a ruse as it was, L Frank Baum’s loveable humbug couldn’t hold a candle to the heads of modern corporations. Corporate Timber maintained economic and political control over the Pacific Northwest using the many methods to manufacture consent, including: the concentration of timber holdings and production capital (namely mills and milling equipment) in the hands of a few corporations; reliance on gyppo logging firms and either nonunion millworkers or millworkers with mostly compliant union representation; insurance of the gyppos’ loyalty through forestry and bidding practices that made the latter financially dependent upon the corporations; dominance of regulatory agencies by subservient or likeminded officials, sometimes even former timber executives; ideological and financial domination over timber dependent communities, their public institutions, and their locally elected officials; the donation of just enough charitable contributions to those often financially starved institutions as a “carrot”; the threat of capital flight—which was becoming increasingly feasible due to new technologies—as a “stick”; appeals to cultural ideals particular to the region, namely rugged individualism, cultural conservatism, and private property; and the establishment of ostensibly grassroots false front groups to foster the illusion of populist counter-opposition to the corporations’ political opponents. [2] In the spring of 1988, Pacific Lumber used this last tool extensively.

After Jerry Partain rejected the Shaw Creek and Lawrence Creek THPs proposed by Pacific Lumber, the following letter by Ramona Moore appeared in the Eureka Times-Standard and the Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance:

“I’ve lived in Humboldt County since 1954 and have been employed at the Pacific Lumber Company for 24 years, and my husband for 29 years. Our four children were raised in Scotia…

“We take great pride in knowing we have always paid our full share of taxes, never drawn welfare funds nor filed unemployment because we didn’t want to work, and contributed what we could to charitable organizations. What have Earth First and EPIC people contributed? They have opposed everything from importing bananas to cutting trees and are only for legalizing marijuana. They are mostly unemployed which means they are drawing unemployment benefits or on welfare, and maybe growing ‘pot’ to supplement their income. They certainly are not paying federal, state, and county taxes…

“…We have to work for our living and whether they realize it or not, it’s our work and contributions in taxes that allows them the benefits they’re living on. So what gives them the right to play God with our future?

“Humboldt County relies on fishing, tourism, and timber (a renewable resource) for their livelihood. If Earth First and EPIC people win their endeavors, none of these things will be available. Pacific Lumber contributes $30 million in wages yearly, and millions are contributed in taxes. If this is taken from the community and thousands of people are without work, only one thing can happen—disaster!” [3]

This was but one of many very similar letters published between April 19 and June 10, 1988, including those by Steve White, published in the Eureka Times-Standard, April 19, 1988 [4]; Dann Johnson, Times-Standard on April 23, 1988 [5]; Rodney and Melodee Sanderson, Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance on May 10, 1988 [6]; Richard Adams [7] and Lee Ann Walstrom [8], Times-Standard, May 21, 1988; Samuel and Linda Bartlett [9], Mary L. Fowler [10], Kevin Morris [11], Nita M Whitaker [12], Keith Kersell [13], and Lee Ann Walstrum [14], Beacon and Fortuna Advance, May 22, 1988; Gaird Hamilton, Times-Standard, May 23, 1988 [15]; Lynda Lyons, Times-Standard, May 24, 1988 [16]; Richard Ward [17] and Fred Johnson [18], Times-Standard, May 25, 1988; Forrest Johnson, Times-Standard, May 26, 1988 [19]; Dennis Coleman, Times-Standard, May 27, 1988 [20]; Raymond Davis [21], Jeff and Sherrin Erickson [22], and Gary L Wyatt [23], Beacon and Fortuna Advance, May 27, 1988; Deborah August of Eureka [24], Ken Cress [25], and Jim Scaife [26], Eureka Times-Standard, May 28, 1988; Linda Bartlett (again) [27], Allan E. Barrote [28], Josh and Betty Edwards [29], Vanessa Frederickson [30] Mohota Jean Pollard and Donald H. Pollard [31], and Dee Weeks and family (sic) [32], Beacon and Fortuna Advance, June 3, 1988; and James Ober [33] and Cindy Cardoza Tyler [34], Beacon and Fortuna Advance on June 10, 1988. The Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance commented that the sheer volume of letters was unusual. [35] Even the owner of the Chevron gas station in Scotia got into the act. [36]

The letters were all remarkably similar to each other, even to the extent that they were more or less interchangeable(and, interestingly—and quite likely not coincidentally—they match “Climber Dan’s” more confrontational words to Greg King as described in the previous chapter). A generic example of any one of these letters read like this:

“My name is (insert name here). I (or my spouse) have worked for (this or that timber company) for x-dozen years. I, my spouse, and my 2.53 children are god fearing Americans who have lived in (the local company town) for several decades. (The timber company for which I work) contributes $100,000s annually in taxes to the local economy and employs 100s of workers in our county. (Our company) plants 5 trees for every tree they cut down.

“Recently a small group of extremists who aren’t even residents of our county have hijacked local and state government agencies responsible for managing our timber resources, including the CDF, and have bullied them into rejecting dozens of THPs through the use of frivolous lawsuits. These THPs are no different than the ones the CDF have approved for years. Many of the forests that our company logged a generation or two ago have grown back completely and there are more trees growing in our county than ever before!

“These so-called environmentalists belong to radical eco-terrorist fringe groups like Earth First! and EPIC. Their members don’t work, don’t pay taxes, and probably raise their money by growing and selling marijuana.

“Now these extremists are proposing to take our private property and give it to government in a communistic land-grab for what they are calling a “wilderness complex”. However, there are already more than enough redwood trees preserved in parks. If these extremists have their way, the will stop at nothing until they have halted all logging and destroyed the economy of our hard working community!”

None of these claims were remotely true, and they were obviously derived from a single source, perhaps even a form letter that suggested using any or all of these talking points. Clearly this was a case of manufactured hysteria, and it was not difficult to guess who was responsible.

By this time, Earth First! had grown accustomed to such smear campaigns against them. In fact, one year previously, about six months after the accident that injured George Alexander, they had been accused—mostly by Louisiana-Pacific—of interfering with the fighting of forest fires by filing appeals to that corporation’s THPs during raging summer conflagrations. This was rhetorical nonsense, of course. Earth First! could have challenged every THP ever filed and it would have had no appreciable effect on the forest fires, since the CDF’s firefighters are not generally in the business of reviewing logging plans, but it didn’t really matter. L-P’s goal in making such claims was frame Earth First! as an uncaring, disruptive force, which couldn’t have been further from the truth, as Darryl Cherney had attempted to show:

“Those depicting Earth First!ers as dope-growing welfare recipients against all logging do so out of fear. We are employed, educated, and pro-logging. We are against wholesale rape of the earth and abuse of wildlife and human life. Selective cutting, as P-L once did, is closer to our vision, but at this point, the logging of old-growth must stop. The 90 percent we’ve cut, we’ve squandered. We deserve no more.

We are not anti-jobs. We rely on the economy too…Many here are tied to timber, with no free speech to criticize the industry. Don’t blame lost jobs on environmentalists when automation and over-cutting are the causes.” [37]

Cherney’s frustrations were quite understandable, of course, because by the late 1980s, it was standard practice for Corporate Timber’s amen corner to shift the blame for all of the timber industry’s ills to “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs” to the point of absurdity. [38]

The most recent barrage of letters had been ostensibly organized by a group of P-L workers who freely supported Maxxam and genuinely opposed Earth First!. A group of them had formed “Save The Employees Association” (STEA) in May 1988 in response to the ongoing protests by Earth First!, EPIC’s lawsuits challenging P-L’s THPs, the recent legislation by Byron Sher and Barry Keene, Judge Buffington’s TROs, The Earth First! Headwaters wilderness complex, and Jerry Partain’s recent denials of a two P-L THPs. Shortly after that, the following paid advertisement in the form of yet another letter appeared in the May 10, 1988 issue of the Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance, addressed to “Friends, Neighbors, and Businesses in Humboldt County,” from “Employees of and Contractors to the Pacific Lumber Company,” regarding “A Threat to the Economy of the North Coast.” It declared that the threat was not Hurwitz, but rather:

“…a group of people who want to stop timber harvesting in parts of our county. In January the Earth First! organization began lobbying legislators and candidates for office to adopt a proposal called the ‘Headwaters Forest Wilderness Complex,’ The Headwaters proposal recommends that huge amounts of privately-held timberlands, ranchlands, and dairylands in Humboldt County be removed from the tax rolls and preserved by the government as ‘wilderness’…

“Here are a few facts we think you, the people of Humboldt should know:

“1200 people are employed at the (sic) PL. The annual payroll is $30 million.

“300 people are employed by contractors to PL. fees received annually by contractors total about $13 million.

“PL employees and contractor employees spend most of their wages in this community supporting their families.

“Most of us live in Humboldt, own property here, and pay property taxes here.

“PL is one of the larger taxpayers in the county, paying approximately $1.5 million yearly in property taxes and $2 million in timber taxes…

“…Earth First! is threatening more than our jobs. They are threatening to undermine the tax base and the standard of living throughout the county. Few Earth First!ers even live in Humboldt County. Fewer still pay property taxes here. Earth First! isn’t helping to solve community problems. They sure aren’t acting like they understand our economy. And they don’t care about the people who live here.” [39]

This “open letter” was signed by Employees of Pacific Lumber (without the definite article “The” preceding it. The other signers included various gyppo firms that contracted extensively with Pacific Lumber, including Lewis Logging, Lyall Logging, Rounds Logging, Van Meter Logging, Eel River Sawmills, and Don Nolan Trucking, which was not especially shocking since their profit margins benefitted from the increased harvesting Maxxam brought about. Somewhat more curious though were the (emphasized) comments about the effect of the Headwaters Wilderness Complex on ranching and dairy. These were a clear indication that the actual opposition to the Earth First! Headwaters Forest proposal was substantially more than that of a few pro-Maxxam timber workers. Even State Senator Barry Keene found this development highly suspicious:

“The Earth First! headwater (sic) wilderness proposal, subject to recent debate and protest is ill-conceived. If implemented, it would threaten the timber and agricultural industries in Humboldt County by removing substantial acreages of land from production…

“Yet frankly, I am puzzled why the proposal has received so much attention in the past few weeks. A copy did circulate in the Capitol some time ago, but I am unaware of anyone who has taken it seriously…

“It seems the threat from this particular proposal may have been exaggerated, and in fact may have been diversionary tactic to draw attention away from corporate shortcomings in managing the resource…

“Speeding up the old growth harvest to meet corporate debt payments only pushes us towards an inevitable drop-off in jobs. This is an issue of enormous concern to me and one that I have been working on to find solutions.

“With respect to Pacific Lumber, my complaint is not with the local managers who live in, and understand, the community. Rather it is with the long-distance corporate manipulators who perceive timber as an asset to be stripped to finance corporate dealings elsewhere. The appeals by EPIC and the denial of harvest plans by Director Partain are symptomatic of the larger issue of conversion from an old growth economy.” [40]

The sudden vitriol directed at Jerry Partain was hardly justified. He was by no means an environmentalist and had, in his role as director of the CDF, fast-tracked thousands of THPs. He had been a P-L stockholder and cashed in handsomely when Maxxam bought the company in 1986. Since the previous July he had approved 525 out of 530 THPs in all. His characterization of environmentalists who challenged his approvals was “elements that don’t want any timber harvest at all” and “some days I think they are going to shut timber harvest (down) in California.” [41] Yet, after he denied a mere three THPs (two of which had been submitted by P-L and one that had been filed by Eel River Sawmills) in May 1988 [42], the letters to the press by the P-L workers began. It didn’t stop there however. [43] The Humboldt County Supervisors, led by Harry Pritchard—who was determined to bolster support for his reelection in his campaign against challenger John Maurer—decided to make Partain’s ruling an issue at the May 17 Supervisors’ meeting. Corporate Timber made damn sure that they were well represented at this public discussion. [44]

On May 17, approximately 200-500 (depending on whose account) “pro-timber” demonstrators rallied at the Humboldt County Courthouse in Eureka. The event began with an early morning semi-truck convoy on Highway 101 south of Eureka, at least 200 rigs long stretching as far south as nearby Fields Landing. [45] The trucks rolled into Eureka and passed down the main highway approached the county courthouse downtown where the rally took place, and then circled it for two hours. The assembled crowd bore signs which read “We Pay Our Taxes”, “How Can You Replace $10-$16 an Hour Wages?”, and “Businesses Stand Together—Fight Socialism.” [46] Many of the demonstrators wore orange hardhats and green Earth First! shirts with a red circle and slash negation symbol covering the Earth First! raised fist logo. [47]

There were a few courageous Earth First! counterdemonstrators present, but when they attempted to address the crowd, they were shouted down with chants of “Earth First! Go Home!”, not to mention the all too familiar “Go to Russia!” [48] When KVIQ TV reporter Karen Olson attempted to interview one of the environmentalists, an unidentified woman from the “pro logging” group screamed at her and ordered her to stop. [49] The event was organized by members of STEA, particularly trucking company owner Don Nolan Sr., Several businesses gave their workers the day off to attend it. [50] Pacific Lumber shut down for the day according to David Galitz, who also attended the event. [51]

The rally was attended by P-L workers, such as Cat skinner John Morrison of Hydesville, who declared, “It seems like we never get to voice our opinion…” (The hundreds of letters to the editor, the countless paid advertisements, and the favorable coverage and editorials by the corporate press evidently didn’t exist in Morrison’s universe) “…We needed to show we believed in logging. The loss of Pacific Lumber would have a drastic effect on the whole county.” Fellow P-L employee and lead Fortuna millwright Don Peterson declared, “I hope it showed our legislators and supervisors that we the workers are concerned and that we are tired of being the silent majority.” [52] “(Earth First!ers) are the ones who’ve been heard. We as working men haven’t had the time to protest. Today we made the time…I don’t think anybody here wants to cut the forest and leave it bare…(Earth First! ‘extremists’) want to make a park out of logging land,” he concluded. [53] His admonishment for the local officials to listen didn’t have to travel far to be heard by their ears, because one of Fortuna’s councilmen was P-L supervisor Dennis Wood, who was also present at the rally. [54]

The hearing itself was even more surreal. Harold Pritchard (whose reelection campaign signs graced most of the trucks that had encircled the courthouse) chaired the discussion on the denied THPs. Jerry Partain tried to explain to the angry mob that they were making a mountain out of a molehill over the rejected THPs, and that due to increasing scrutiny by the public, more stringent review of them was inevitable. Darryl Cherney, trying as hard as he could to stomach the presence of the vigilantes, regarded the CDF director’s testimony as bureaucratic doublespeak. The sufficiently propagandized loggers and mill workers, however, regarded this as Partain caving into pressure from “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs.” Humboldt State University economics professor John Grobey’s testimony which followed made Cherney almost lose his lunch. Grobey predicted that the economic impacts of Partain’s having rejected the two P-L THPs would be the loss of as many as 1852 timber jobs. Then he proceeded to denounce Earth First!, EPIC, and environmentalists as the source of all of Humboldt County’s troubles. [55] Just as Grobey concluded his verbatim recitation of Corporate Timber’s talking points, Pritchard declared that he had heard all that he had needed to hear. When Greg King spoke up in protest, asking if the supervisors would be talking public comment, Dennis Wood angrily shouted, from the floor, “they’re not going to take any testimony from an idiot like you!” Before King could respond, Pritchard gaveled the session closed. [56]

In spite of apparent show of unity, the entire affair was a case of manufactured dissent. Again, it wasn’t hard to guess who had organized it. These “pro-worker” demonstrations were almost exact replicas of the employer organized “rallies” against the formation of Redwood National Park in the 1970s. [57] All of the rhetoric about the “threat to jobs” didn’t square with realty, because the Eureka Times-Standard reported, on May 28, 1988, that the local economy was performing better than expected and the timber industry was booming, mainly due to Maxxam’s accelerated cut. [58] The prohibition of the THPs apparently did nothing to blemish this rosy picture, and, if anything, there were more logs coming out of the nearby forests than ever before. [59]

The mob didn’t accurately reflect the residents of Humboldt County, either. For example—although it is admittedly small sample size—when polled by the Eureka Times-Standard, out of a total of eight respondents, six held neutral or negative opinions of the STEA organized events, and two of the latter were woodworkers. [60] Eureka resident Philip Mark Talbrook, who described himself as a family man who recognized that the local economy depended on timber harvesting, declared, “I had mixed feelings when I walked through the truckers’ pro-cut demonstration…of both pride and pain. It felt somewhat like seeing your son out the door on his first date—and realizing that he had the town slut on his arm.” [61]

It was likewise highly suspicious that the assembled “workers” accused the environmentalists for having little regard for jobs and workers’ livelihood [62], because this was simply not the case. The Man Who Walks in the Woods rebutted these charges in a guest editorial in the Eureka Times-Standard a few days after the rally:

“It is an age-old industry lie that “elitist environmentalists” are the cause of job loss. In 1947 it took 11.3 people to produce a million board feet of lumber, but, at the Simpson mill at Smith River, opened in 1977, it take a mere 6 people to produce a million board feet. Virtually all job loss in the logging industry has been due to automation and log exports. Where are Maxxam’s crocodile tears for the employees here? Who is the real enemy of the employees? Not the environmentalists who have long and strongly joined with the Woodworkers Union in calling for effective sustained yield policies so arrogantly resisted by the industry.

“It’s also important to note that EPIC’s legal actions have tied up a very tiny percentage of Maxxam’s approved THPs. Already approved plans represent far more volume than PALCO can handle in the near future, thus the threats of crew layoffs are merely politically motivated. Again, we ask who is the real enemy of the employees?” [63]

The principal Earth First! organizers were, in actual fact, perhaps the environmentalists most sympathetic to the potential plight of the timber workers. After the rally, Darryl Cherney opined, “I feel real comfortable about people logging trees. I feel they’re just doing it too fast.” [64] Greg King, who also attended the event declared, “I think it’s an excellent rally. I just think they should be unified around opposing the corporations that are putting them out of work. I don’t blame them for wanting to protect their jobs, but they should be looking for the real culprit, and it’s not the environmentalists.” [65] Shortly after that he wrote the following letter:

“I was pleased and encouraged to witness such a cohesive display of worker solidarity May 17 at the county courthouse. The loggers, mill workers, secretaries, receptionists, truck drivers, mechanics, and their families I met were mostly courteous, forthright, and honest in discussing apprehensions over job security.

“Most pleasing was simply being able to talk with people affected by corporate overcutting and mill mechanization, especially those who have been around long enough to witness the overall decline of corporate management practices in the Humboldt area.

“Some of those with whom I spoke are fourth generation Humboldt County residents whose ancestors, we surmised, likely knew my ancestors who settled in Humboldt County during the early 1860s. The gulf between us was very small indeed.

“It is my hope that woodworkers now will gather the energy that on Tuesday was directed towards Earth First! and fire it solidly toward industrial tyrants whose overcutting and mill mechanization have eliminated more jobs from this area than could any group of environmentalists. Most of the people I spoke with agreed on this point, which was not surprising to me once I gathered, after numerous discussions, the overall high level of understanding among woodworkers of this area.

“One man symbolized what turned out to be the predominant concern of the day, just after job security. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t care too much for Earth First!, but I agree with you guys on one thing: We’ve got to kick Maxxam out of the county.’” [66]

None of the media coverage of the event quoted any of the speakers uttering so much as a peep about automation or overcutting. Indeed, their primary contention seemed to be that anything that slowed the pace of timber cutting and threatened the profits of Pacific Lumber was a threat to the economy. Such a position is precisely what one would expect the executives and owners of a corporation such as Maxxam to take, and take it they did. There was absolutely no doubt that the entire affair had been carefully framed, if not scripted, from start to finish by the Corporate Timber wizards. Sure, the anger expressed by the rank and file workers was genuine, and their feelings real, but these had been carefully nudged and guided by their slick, P.R. savvy employers and their agents who knew exactly how to exploit and manipulate the workers’ fears. Pacific Lumber public affairs manager David Galitz waxed poetic about the event, gushingly declaring:

“It was an uprising by the citizens and their families. It wasn’t just the workers and the business people, but also their spouses. We knew there were a lot of people out there who recognized the importance and the significance of the lumber industry in Humboldt County…(P-L management) knew the protest was coming but the workers organized it on their own. We think the workers were somewhat hesitant to discuss the protest with us for fear we might tell them to tone it down. It’s probably the most rewarding demonstration I have ever witnessed.” [67]

John Campbell declared, “It’s wonderful that the working man had a chance to express their feelings. I hope they will be listened to.” [68] What neither Galitz nor Campbell revealed is that they had been sounding warning bells about threats to the workers’ livelihoods from “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs” all year. [69] After Partain denied the Lawrence and Shaw Creek THPs, both executives had issued statements containing exactly the same talking points included in Ramona Moore’s as well as all of the other letters (Galitz conveniently omitted his executive title, however). [70]

Timber corporations like Pacific Lumber were careful not to let the public trace the organizing directly back to them however. If it were openly declared that the companies had organized the “pro-worker” rallies, it would have been too obvious that these had been blatant attempts to sow divisions between the actual workers and the environmentalists whose long term goals were not actually appreciably different. Instead, Corporate Timber relied upon a huge network of intermediary false front groups to serve that purpose. The most commonly used such groups were the so-called “Wise Use” groups who advocated “mixed use” of public lands, and against the “extremism” of environmentalists who seek to render such lands off limits to all but a few, usually an “elite” few. Although often framed as favoring Gifford Pinchot’s view of forestry over John Muir’s, in actual fact, such groups more accurately could be described as favoring Richard Ballinger’s ideas.

In practice, “mixed” use actually meant the maximization of resource extraction by private (corporate) interests, and in general the actual aims of the environmentalists favored far more “mixed” and inclusive of “wise” use (by prudent and sound biological as well as utilitarian economic standards at least). The wise use groups appealed much more strongly to the “rugged individualist”, culturally conservative, libertarian ethic of small western property owners and were fairly sophisticated at convincing the latter that their interests are the same as those of the big resource extracting corporations. In all cases, such groups insisted that they were independently organized, but careful examination of their financial records overwhelmingly reveals that their primary source of funding is resource extracting corporations. [71]

WECARE was one of these “wise use” front groups active on the North Coast. Although the Corporate Timber-friendly Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance described the group as being composed of “the men and women…of the brawn it takes to earn an income from Humboldt’s prized timberland,” these were merely the packaging for the organization’s true agenda. [72] WECARE spokesman Sheppard (“Shep”) Tucker, born the same year as Darryl Cherney coincidentally, was also a talking head for L-P. On December 9, 1986, in a guest editorial in the aforementioned publication, Tucker, speaking for WECARE, offered his opinions in response to opposition to increasing timber harvests within the Six Rivers National Forest. [73] Tucker’s opinion was carefully crafted to create the impression that timber corporations and the government were careful stewards of the nation’s forests and environmentalists were extremists, whose “interference” with the former’s stewardship spelled certain doom for the long term viability of rural America and its timber dependent communities. [74]

WECARE may have claimed to be “pro-environment” (in addition to its being most definitely pro extraction and plenty of it), but it characterized actual environmentalists as elitist “lug-booted backpackers, who spend a short term in the forest then speed away in their Volvos to never again spend a dime in, or invest a nickel in, the livelihood of Humboldt County.” [75] They organized their members to oppose changes to forestry policy that strengthened environmental regulations, even going so far as to pay for radio and newspaper ads. [76] Not content with simply opining and organizing rallies in favor of increased timber extraction, WECARE routinely sponsored contests among school children with themes such as “Forests and how they work for you,” designed to indoctrinate elementary school age children into the fold. [77] And WECARE was by no means unique. In northeastern California there was also an ICARE (The “I” stood for “Intermountain”) which railed against the Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and Wilderness Society. In the Shasta-Trinity Area there was a SARE. [78] In the northern reaches of Del Norte and Trinity Counties there was yet another group called KARE (the K stood for “Klamath”) [79] All of these groups acted alike and published statements with very similar sounding rhetoric.

The CARE groups were, in turn, small satellites of a much larger network. In fact there were at least thirty similar groups located throughout the state of California, which were all part of an umbrella organization known as Alliance for Environment and Resources (AER), which was founded in 1986 and was a front group for the California Forestry Association (CFA), based in Sacramento, California. The CFA’s mission was specifically to represent the forest products’ industry, to lobby California state officials for less restrictive logging policies, and to sanitize the image of large private timber firms. [80] There were even groups, such as “Women in Timber” who specifically made heavy use of the imagery of “the family” as a propaganda tool and, like WECARE (and sometimes in partnership with them), sponsored elementary school presentations advertising the glories and virtues of (corporate) logging. [81]

Although not well known in 1988, according to an extensive report, published by Greenpeace in 1993, five years later, there were at least fifty major anti-environmental umbrella organizations operating in the United States and Canada, and many of these were regional clusters of hundreds of locally based groups. A great many of them were financed by large timber and mining corporations. For example, in addition to the aforementioned groups, Georgia-Pacific gave financial support to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE) and the Pacific Legal Foundation. Louisiana-Pacific helped finance the Blue Ribbon Coalition and CDFE. Pacific Lumber supported CDFE, and Kaiser Aluminum provided funds to the Global Climate Coalition (an industry front group whose goal it was to limit and oppose CO­₂ regulations). [82]

CDFE in particular boasted of its “pro-industry, anti-environmental literature”, and one of its chief spokesmen, Ron Arnold, a major mover and shaker in the “Wise Use” movement had urged (pro Corporate Timber) loggers to submit stories for a “pro-logging” book but to eschew science and fact because, according to him, “Science and fact count for very little. If you count on science and fact, you will lose.” [83] STEA was no different. It began merely as a group of pro-Maxxam employees, but it very quickly morphed into a wise-use group, Taxpayers for the Environment and its Management (TEAM) which bore more than just a passing resemblance to WECARE, and—not surprisingly—the two often worked together. All of the subcontractors who had attended the May 17^th rally regularly participated in TEAM. [84] Considering all of that, to say that P-L had not organized the anti-Earth First! mobs is utter nonsense.

It was not particularly well known at the time that TEAM had the support of very few actual P-L employees, many of whom saw the front group exactly for what it was, an illusion created by the Maxxam wizards behind the wise use curtain. Indeed, many of the half jokingly explained that the letters stood for “Tell the Employees Another Myth.” [85] Such facts were kept as hidden as possible, and it wasn’t difficult for Maxxam to do so. Campbell, Galitz, and other P-L executives sanction and vetted TEAM, and as a result, that organization was made to look far larger and more important than it actually was. TEAM was about as much of a genuine “employee organization” as the LLLL was a genuine union, which was to say, not much at all. Meanwhile, the workers who disapproved of Maxxam (a few of whom opposed the environmentalists, but many of whom recognized that the latter were not their enemies) lacked a union or any other coherent organized force at the time to give them a sense of solidarity and collective strength. [86]

Those few workers who did speak out were either ignored or threatened with termination. For example, Kelly Bettiga tried to relay his thoughts to a Wall Street Journal reporter. He had driven through driving rain to Arcata to tell all and had told the reporter, on no uncertain terms, that the message being given the media by Campbell and his ilk was “all bullshit”. Bettga pulled no punches in criticizing the Maxxam regime, but the Wall Street Journal chose not to run the story. [87] His fellow worker, Pete Kayes, took a slightly different approach, penning the following letter to the editor, which he sent to various local periodicals:

“When the Pacific Lumber Company was taken over by Maxxam, it was as though we employees had been kidnapped. We were diverted from the comfortable course the old sustained yield logging provided, and that we felt would go on forever.

“As with all hostages, we’ll only be safe when we help the kidnapper achieve his goals, so in a way his goals become our goals. That is one of the reasons P-L employees are afraid to speak out publically about P-L’s current logging practices, even though the company continues to sell logs to other mills and for export and will reduce employment at P-L in the long run.

“We know the real long range problems are being created by our current logging practices, which are being aggressively defended by Maxxam under the guise of an employee group. The current employee pro-logging ‘volunteer group’ [aka TEAM] has become a prime example of the kidnapped adopting the goals of their captor for their own safety.

“When people are uncomfortable because many changes are taking place in their lives, they try to minimize those changes and keep things as they are, ‘safe’…

“As we are finding out, there are no safe places unless we make them that way by taking control of our own lives…” [88]

Kayes no doubt spoke for a huge percentage of his fellow workers who were less brazen than he, and they had good reason to fear. Shortly after this letter appeared in both the Eureka Times-Standard and Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance, John Campbell informed Kayes that if the latter really felt kidnapped the vice president and overseer would be more than happy to set the malcontented blacksmith free. [89] Evidently Campbell wasn’t so thrilled about this particular working man expressing his feelings, but he decided not to make that so widely known. Kayes stood his ground and, at least for the moment remained employed, but other workers no doubt kept a low profile because they had no desire to be “set free” from their jobs.

Wherever the P-L workers stood on the environmental issue, most environmentalists knew perfectly well that TEAM and WECARE were an elaborate false front for the timber corporations. Country Activist coeditor Bob Martel summed it up thusly:

“For Hurwitz and his hired minions in Scotia the ‘game winning strategy’ is confusion, divide-and-conquer, and eventually sellout. If they allow the employees to gather a head of steam and publically express disaffection for Galitz, Campbell, and the fascists in TEAM, the end of Maxxam’s control would be inevitable. Hurwitz cannot unite the employees behind his plan but he can terrorize them into silence. So expect more smoke screens, more media terrorism, a few firings and demotions, and also expect to see panic build in the right-wing groups such as WECARE as the pressure builds.” [90]

It was not the role of these so-called “Wise Use” groups to build bridges between resource extraction workers and environmentalists, however, nor was it to even seek compromise between them. Clearly they sought to drive the wedges further between them, and in this endeavor they were often successful. [91] Part of these false-front organizations’ agenda was not so much to simply attack environmental groups, but also to keep public officials in line, fully in service of the timber corporations’ desired ends. In this case, they succeeded. In response to the supposed “populist uprising” Jerry Partain pledged to make the CDF friendlier to timber interests (as if such a thing were even possible). Partain cited as motivation Ramona Moore’s letter, which he described as “an excellent letter that came from the heart.” One could scarcely imagine a more elaborate kabuki. Moore’s letter had about as much “heart” as Partain was an environmentalist, but naturally John Campbell approved of the CDF director’s reversal declaring, “It’s about time certain segments of government begin to act responsibly.” Campbell’s sentiments were echoed by Harold Pritchard. [92] The wizards behind the Redwood Curtain had done their magic.

* * * * *

Another role of the “wise use” groups included organizing counter demonstrations at environmentalist’s rallies, both to wear the latter down and to create the illusion that they were out of touch with the local community and the timber workers. For example, on May 23, over 250 counterdemonstrators, most of them women organized by Concerned Citizens of Humboldt County (CCHC), mobilized to oppose Earth First! at a rally scheduled to take place by the latter at the Yager Creek Log Deck near Carlotta, except that Earth First! wasn’t there! (They had, by previous arrangement, and quite unaware of the counterdemonstration, moved their protest to Assemblyman Hauser’s office in Eureka instead). CCHC spokeswoman Linda Bartlett was livid that her group missed a chance to shout down their adversaries, claiming that Earth First! was afraid of being opposed publically. Darryl Cherney disputed Bartlett’s claim responding, “If I had known that 250 people were going to turn up, I would have never changed the location. No one from (CCHC) called and said that they were doing a demonstration. We’d be happy to walk into a room of a thousand loggers and discuss our differences.” [93] He indicated that he had even contacted them in advance of the change. [94]

A related sleight of hand trick performed by such groups was to serve as an ostensible right wing pole of opposition in order to make the Corporate Timber representatives and the compliant politicians appear to be more reasonable. Earth First! hadn’t moved the demonstration because they were unwilling to listen to these so-called representatives of the workers. Instead, they were seeking to oppose political opportunism by the incumbent Greg King sought to unseat. After meeting informally on the issue for several weeks, California State Assemblyman Dan Hauser and fellow Assemblyman Byron Sher, Chairman of the State Assembly Natural Resources Committee and a Democrat whose home district was based in Palo Alto, met with P-L officials, led by John Campbell, and hammered out an “agreement”. [95] On Thursday, May 26, 1988, with great fanfare Campbell proclaimed that P-L would be returning to a “selective cutting method” for the harvesting of old growth redwoods.

“Over the past 120 years, Pacific Lumber has harvested by both the selective and clearcut methods. In fact, we clearcut exclusively for the first 60 years of our existence to the point where we have now harvested on about 90 percent of the nearly 200,000 acres we own in Humboldt County. Also, by far most of the timber we currently harvest is residual or second growth trees. [96]

Campbell pledged that P-L would continue to work with Save the Redwoods League “as they had for sixty years,” and with state park officials to aid in efforts to maintain and improve watershed protection and “general aesthetics” on adjacent parklands. [97] Hauser and Sher seemed satisfied Campbell’s optimism. Hauser declared, “This is good news for everyone. This responsible and voluntary decision by Pacific Lumber will protect our forests and our jobs. I am pleased to see that I was right in thinking that discussion and compromise would take us further than confrontation.” [98] John Maurer also hailed the agreement, declaring, “the need to return to selective cutting has been one of the cornerstones of our campaign.” On the other hand, State Senator Barry Keene denounced the so-called agreement, declaring it, “nothing more than window dressing and a diversionary tactic.” [99] The wise use groups denounced the agreement as another example of the environmentalists bullying the timber industry into blackmail.

The so called announcement was anything but earth shattering, however, because a major issue brought by the environmentalists that the agreement left unaddressed was the liquidation of old growth stands. That there was a marked difference between the logging practices of P-L in the most recent two years and its practices over the previous 58 was glossed over by Campbell. [100] Environmentalists weren’t especially convinced that Pacific Lumber’s “pledge” was anything but a paper tiger. EPIC board member Ruthanne Cecil cautiously welcomed the announcement, stating that the decision, “was definitely a step forward, and we congratulate Maxxam on a return to what the old P-L was doing. This means jobs for woodcutters will extend further into the future. We encourage other timber companies to move away from clearcutting.” [101] She also warned, however, that a select cut could still represent an overcut. [102] Bill Devall conceded that P-L’s admission that clearcutting was wrong represented the “first, small step,” but if the company were genuinely serious, they would work with STRL and develop a plan to preserve the Lawrence, Yager, and Salmon Creek watersheds, which they still intended to cut, and refrain from logging in any old growth stands. He elaborated:

“As we continue the healing process, Earth First!, Pacific Lumber, Save the Redwoods League, and timber industry employees can all work together to fight common enemies: greed and ignorance. We can tell Charles Hurwitz we won’t allow a greedy, takeover artist to strip wealth from this county…We can work together to protect and preserve these remaining old-growth redwoods.” [103]

Greg King noted that according to the “agreement” between Maxxam and the state officials, P-L’s “select cut” required preservation of only one tree per acre, which was little better than an actual clearcut. [104] Darryl Cherney was equally dismissive, declaring, “It’s a PR move all the way. Given Maxxam’s very recent takeover of Kaiser Aluminum, incurring another $700 million in debt, I find it hard to believe that Maxxam would have P-L slow down their cut,” and added that the agreement also didn’t preclude P-L from clearcutting its second growth and residual old growth stands. [105]

* * * * *

Still one more role of front groups like WECARE and TEAM was the insurance that anyone seeking to unseat incumbent public officials sympathetic to corporate timber faced an uphill battle. For example, Campbell (and many of the letter writers) dismissed the lawsuits by EPIC as merely being a vehicle for Cherney’s run for congress. [106] This was not really the case, however. By June of 1988, Darryl Cherney and Neil Sinclair had decided to end their congressional campaigns and endorse Lionel Gambill. Both agreed that since their challenger was polling the best in head-to-head matchups with the incumbent among the three primary contenders, Gambill represented the best hope in defeating Bosco in the primary. [107] Cherney felt that Gambill, while not ideal, still represented a good enough alternative. He had already questioned Gambill extensively on numerous issues and found the latter’s positions to be close enough to his own that he decided supporting Gambill would be easy. [108] However, since election laws didn’t allow him to remove his name from the ballot, Cherney made the best of the situation, agreeing to continue to participate in all forums and debates as a symbolic candidate (singing, guitar playing, and hell raising included), but in those instances he would urge that the vote be cast for Gambill instead. The latter enthusiastically accepted Cherney’s support, and Sinclair agreed to assist Gambill on strategic matters. [109] Gambill also made it clear that should he be defeated by Bosco in the primary, he would endorse the Peace and Freedom candidate, Eric Fried, a decision which angered the Democratic Party machine, including Barry Keene who rebuked the challenger for such a declaration. [110]

John Maurer faced similar propaganda assaults in his contest with Harry Pritchard. Maurer ran a spirited campaign with the support of many Pacific Lumber workers and environmental activists. He did not run as an Earth First!er, however. In fact, he tried to position himself as being the “moderate” alternative between Earth First! and Maxxam. Maurer claimed to be on good terms with some of P-L’s management, including even John Campbell. He had the support of many of his former fellow workers, including Pete Kayes. [111] Fortuna resident Tom Brundage praised Maurer for his potential ability to unite what he perceived was an increasingly divided community being polarized between the “two extremes, both of which (were) based outside of Humboldt County, Earth First! and Maxxam.” [112] Brundage’s fellow Fortuna resident Timothy Carter applauded the former P-L shipping clerk for his strong stances on both jobs and the environment. [113] His willingness to meet with the public had a positive effect on many undecided voters, including Donna Mooslin of Carlotta who said, “Harry may have years of experience as a Supervisor, but it seems to me that John has far greater interest and ability in communicating directly with voters, and that is what we need in county government.” [114]

Maurer’s attempt to take the “moderate approach” was quickly dismissed by Pritchard’s supporters. To not support Corporate Timber uncritically was to be labeled an Earth First!er. It was true that Maurer and his wife were good friends with Darryl Cherney, but this was not a well known fact, and even so, the Maurers and Cherney didn’t always agree upon every issue. [115] Rather, many of Maurer’s detractors based their opposition on the candidate’s willingness to challenge Corporate Timber’s near unfettered rule over the county and its timber base at all. In some cases, this was literally the case. For example, Bonnie Armstrong opined:

“From the very outset, it’s been clear that Mr. Maurer is running on a single issue: to get Maxxam and, by extension, Pacific Lumber.

“Now, however, in his single-minded zeal, Mr. Maurer has found himself marching in lockstep with groups like EPIC and Earth First extremists. Unfortunately, he’s also found himself at odds with the majority of the people of the Second District—not a good place for someone who’s trying to get elected.” [116]

These sentiments were echoed by Joe Michlig of Fortuna who admonished Maurer to “stop trying to destroy the Pacific Lumber Company and the timber industry in general,” and to fight the “real menace”, namely the environmentalists, a green menace no doubt. [117] Such accusations bordered on hyperbole. Maurer was neither a supporter nor an opponent of Proposition 70 or the Headwaters Forest Wilderness Complex—indeed he had many criticisms of both. [118] No doubt the criticisms of Maurer stemmed from his having argued that Maxxam’s then current practices, including especially clearcutting were a much bigger threat to the long term economic future of Humboldt County than any wilderness complex proposal, even one proposed by Earth First!. [119]

Naturally, the press—beholden to the interests of the status quo—endorsed Pritchard. The Eureka Times Standard supported the incumbent citing his being “an outspoken advocate for the county’s timber industry” as the primary reason for their choice. Evidently being an “outspoken advocate” meant that what was good for Maxxam was good for Humboldt County. [120] John Maurer and his supporters tried ceaselessly to point out that they were better advocates for the industry because his approach would support long term sustainability [121], but even questioning the right of Maxxam to turn a quick profit was to labeled an “Earth First! advocate.” The Humboldt Beacon and Fortuna Advance applauded Pritchard’s support for “good roads…protecting the property rights—and safety—of (the District’s) residents, and (opposing) the increased threat to personal and private property rights by government bureaucrats.” Nowhere in the editorial did the words “timber”, “Pacific Lumber”, “Maxxam”, “environmentalism”, “EPIC”, or “Earth First!” appear, but it was easy to read between the lines and gather that “property rights” meant the right of Maxxam to log the old growth forests of the County at will. [122]

Maurer’s most vocal critics were all supporters and members of TEAM, including Phil Nyberg of Fortuna, who accused Maurer’s campaign of trespassing to place their campaign signs (and also remove pro-Pritchard signs) on “unauthorized properties”, misrepresenting a fundraiser as an apolitical western dance, and promoting a fundraising auction as a 4-H and Kiwani’s function. [123] Likewise, Maurer’s former fellow worker, Stanley Parker who described his lack of support for Maurer thusly:

“I (know) John and respect him so I try to visualize him in the role of a county supervisor. John was a good shipping clerk and I believe him to be a good cabinetmaker. I could not visualize him as a good supervisor, however. When he came to a crucial vote on some matter having to do with our natural resources, I am afraid he would tend to follow the environmental line. I know he is not an Earth First! person, but I believe he would tend to give them more of a hearing than they deserve.” [124]

To the supporters of Corporate Timber, this meant “any hearing at all,” and initially it seemed that Harry Pritchard and his supporters were unwilling to give their opponent one. Pritchard cancelled several events with his contender. Maurer, by contrast, accepted all invitations to make public appearances—which made sense as it was in his interest to make himself known as the challenger, but it also bolstered his argument that the incumbent was not accessible to the people. The League of Women Voters requested in writing that both candidates participate in a public forum, but the event was called off, because the Pritchard did not respond before the deadline, and when he finally he did respond, he refused to participate anyway. Forbusco Lumber in Fortuna canceled an event that was to feature both candidates when Pritchard refused to participate. A debate on local TV station KVIQ between the two candidates was called off, because the incumbent was a no show for the taping. [125] A reception at the Scotia Inn was cancelled on short notice by its manager, Jerry Carley, with no reasons given, a decision that drew a strong rebuke from Maurer’s neighbor and supporter Toni M. Scolari [126], and Maurer’s wife, Laurel. [127] Carley had apparently backed out of the event because he (didn’t want) “any kind of confrontation between the workers and John Maurer.” [128] One can only wonder who would have provoked such a confrontation.

In the end, the smear tactics apparently succeeded in beating back John Maurer’s populist challenge, though not by much. The challenger officially came within 26 votes of defeating his opponent on June 7, 1988, but it is entirely possible that Maurer actually won outright. In a series of election improprieties eerily foreshadowing those surrounding the controversial “butterfly ballots” used in some Dade County, Florida precincts during the Presidential Election of 2000, several ballots that may have been intended for Maurer were voided or counted as votes for Pritchard instead. Suspecting fraud, the challenger filed a lawsuit in Humboldt County Superior Court on July 14, 1988, claiming that incorrect instructions were mailed along with 611 absentee ballots. [129] The poorly worded instructions told voters to punch dots above numbers corresponding to candidates’ names, when the dots were actually positioned below the numbers. [130] Further, Maurer argued that (a) voters had been incor­rectly purged from the county’s voter rolls; (b) Some people who were ineligible to vote had been allowed to vote for Pritchard; (c) some invalid absentee votes cast for Prit­chard were counted anyway; (d) some Pritchard voters were allowed to vote twice; and (e) some absentee ballots intended to be mailed to people who would have voted for Maurer were misaddressed. [131] Maurer carried on his challenge for several weeks [132], but ultimately had to give it up, because maintaining it would have required him to pay $1000 in filing fees each day. [133] Whether or not the irregularities were coincidence or deliberate tampering has never been determined, and if tampering did occur, the guilty party(s) have never been identified.

* * * * *

The other races challenging the Corporate Timber friendly officials with few exceptions fared equally poorly. The combined Cherney-Gambill-Sinclair challenge to Doug Bosco ended in defeat when Bosco won the primary. The incumbent would go on to defeat his Republican opponent in November. Greg King fared no better, losing soundly to Dan Hauser. There were a few bright spots, however. Environmentalists could take some comfort at least in the passage of Proposition 70 in the June Primary by a vote of 65.2 percent in favor. [134]

Don Nelson, meanwhile, was defeated by his opponent, Liz Henry, who would in turn defeat right wing opponent Jack Azevedo in the general election in November. This was nothing short of a miracle. Azevedo was a popular local radio personality. Polls had projected him beating Henry by as much as 70 percent until just weeks before the election. Henry’s victory was due—in no small part—to the investigative reporting by her daughter, Lisa, who—with the help of some friends—uncovered and exposed Azevedo’s crypto fascist connections. [135] Liz Henry was not entirely comfortable with Lisa’s actions, fearing (wrongly) that Lisa’s efforts might make the candidate seem like an opportunist. Henry’s daughter recalls:

“The staff of Sidewalks, which was me and a gang of guys, were putting our first issue to bed. Zack Stentz had written and exposé on Jack Azevedo, the man running against my mom for 4^th District Supervisor. Our contention was that Azevedo was a neo-Nazi, because he read and preached on the radio from a neo-Nazi tract called Imperium. No one else had brought this up…

“So, it’s like twelve o’clock, and we’re putting the final touches on the paper—this is at (Beth Bosk’s) house—when we get a call from someone on my mom’s campaign, her campaign manager, who tells us to pull the article; Zack fielded that call with a bunch of great rational reasons why we would never pull the article.

“Fifteen minutes later, I get a call from my mom telling me to pull the article—that I should be the one to pull it. Forget editorial collective. She said it would blow the election for her. That people would accuse her of negative campaigning. I told her I was my own person, and that people could separate her from me, and my opinions from hers, but she said she’d be guilty by association. And she hung up on me.” [136]

Nevertheless, the IWA and Nelson endorsed Henry, certainly not wishing to align themselves with a neo-Nazi such as Azevedo. [137] In the end, Lisa Henry’s actions probably made the key difference in the campaign; Her mother won by a landslide. It would not be the last time the two clashed, however.

As it turned out, Don Nelson’s loss was the best possible outcome the Mendocino County environmentalists could have imagine, because the IWA Local 3-469 official would soon prove that he, too, was willing to throw in his lot with the likes of TEAM and WECARE. Almost immediately following the election, Don Nelson would prove dramatically that he was not on the side of the people. In a series of events unrelated to the election, Nelson refused to honor a UFCW endorsed boycott of the Harvest Market in Fort Bragg, a move which alienated his former ally Roanne Withers. [138] Nelson defended his actions by making the dubious argument that none of the workers in the store had called for the picket [139], but Withers—who was a service worker herself [140], found this reasoning to be appalling, echoing that of union busting employers. Withers pointed out that Jack Barnes, Secretary-Treasurer of the Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake County Central Labor Council had severely criticized Nelson for his actions as well. [141] She had further condemned Nelson for his selling out of the G-P rank and file and decided she could no longer enable him anymore; she resigned as co-host on KMFB and proceeded to expose his perceived betrayals at every opportunity. [142] Nelson’s had cashed in his standing with the Mendocino County progressive community once and for all. [143]

* * * * * 

Corporate Timber’s wizardry would work its magic one more time. On June 28, Judge John Buffington lifted the TROs against logging in Lawrence and Shaw Creek, arguing:

“If these trees are necessary to assure the continuance of certain species of wildlife, the Department of Fish and Game and the California Department of Forestry have not been performing their duty over the past 17 years Or, if they have, the issues here are as the board has determined—not supported by reasonable scientific and factual data at this time.”

The first of the two choices was precisely what EPIC had been arguing, but Buffington was unwilling to make that determination, lest he incur the wrath of the corporate wizards. David Galitz hailed the ruling, opining, “I think this is pretty strong language the judge used in the ruling. We’ve felt all along that groups have been using the (habitat) issue to thwart timber harvesting.” [144] That Galitz’s words exactly matched one of the key talking points repeated in many of the letters and uttered by many of the speakers among the so-called “pro-logging” crowd should have been immediately obvious as a smoking gun.

To a large extent, Corporate Timber’s heavy reliance on the front groups was a testament to the success of Earth First!. The scrappy “David” was actually—if haphazardly—slowly beating the enormous “Goliath”. These interests shared a very real fear that the environmentalists were gaining an economic and political foothold in northwestern California. Still, there was a huge void that Earth First! simply couldn’t fill, and that was the need for a genuine workers’ organization not beholden to Corporate Timber. Had the P-L workers been able to join or organize such a group, they would have been able to effectively dispel the myth, spread by Corporate Timber, that the threat to the timber workers’ livelihoods was entirely the fault of “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs.” Fortuitously, Earth First! was about to be joined by an unexpected ally…the one that had given it much of its cultural and tactical flavor in the first place: the IWW. The timing couldn’t have been better.