O.R.C.

Eco-defendant Briana Waters is now legally a terrorist, having received the terrorist enhancement at her sentencing. She was sentenced to six years in prison and three years on probation. Her sentencing went ahead on June 19th despite new evidence that undermine the legitimacy of Ms. Kolar’s testimony against her. But this of course, is to be expected. However, Briana Water’s sentencing is of particular note: Briana, who was convicted of politically-motivated, terrorist arson, was sentenced to six years, while Eric McDavid, convicted of thinking about committing arson, received 19 years and 7 months. Before Briana took her case to trial, many environmentalists rationalized that the comparatively low sentences the green scare defendants were receiving were on account of having pled guilty. But now, the message the government is sending appears to be a bit surprising: it’s much more dangerous to plot arson than to commit it.

the primary editor of this website is off adventuring for the next month or so, thus the sporadic updates. expect intermittent reports from various roving agents of ORC, and more regular service in, let’s guess July.

Well, Tre Arrow’s trial date has been moved from May 6th to July 8th, and Eric McDavid’s sentencing is currently scheduled for May 8th. Turns out that Greenpeace openly condemned the green scare prisoners. The US has closed most of the west coast to salmon fishing, and someone, most likely an angry fisher, shot six caged sea lions at Bonneville Dam, where they had been trapped to keep them from eating their natural prey, salmon. Portland animal rights activists responded with a demonstration. Oregon’s Liquefied Natural Gas projects creep forward, met by resistance at every turn. Bark, a non-profit in Portland, has announced that they will hike the length of where an LNG pipeline will cut through the Mt. Hood National Forest, June 8th-15th, and they are inviting the public along for a portion of it. The North-Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC) released an interesting strategy piece about the ecological crisis facing us and how to begin to confront it. Eco-prisoner Jeff Luers has been moved to a minimum security prison awaiting his release and has released a dispatch on the event and his feelings about it. A private commission of former governors and the like in Kansas announced that yes, factory farming is really messed up, surprising no one. As a result of a livestock drug, asian vultures are expected to be extinct in 10 years. The Kuwait Ministry of Defense has decided that it is a good idea to ship 6,700 tons of sand contaminated by depleted uranium from Kuwait to a dump in Idaho, and have hired MKM Engineers, Inc of Stafford, Texas to do it. A British company, VANE minerals group, is expected to start mining the grand canyon for uranium (which, by the way, is far from green). The new US/Mexico border fence is apparently impeding the migration of jaguars. Wild buffalo continue to be killed despite Montana’s governors statements that they wouldn’t; in fact, the meat is being sold to local food banks for 42c a pound. Indigenous activists in Canada are walking 1850km to draw attention to the destruction of the earth, while Bush is beating the war drums on drilling the artic refuge once again. Turns out that all this third-world starvation (caused by speculation), is good for business: Monsanto, Mosiac Company, Cargill, and other food/fertilizer mega-corporations are reporting record earnings. The world’s largest lake, in Siberia, is warming up right quick, while global warming is reducing the ocean’s oxygen (oh, and the dead zones are growing). Norway shot its first whale of the season, while Cheney procrastinates protecting the North Atlantic right whale. Washington state might get a new wilderness area, if Bush will sign on. And last but not least of the week’s news, a bridge-construction site in South-west England was struck by the ELF and ALF.

As many of our readers are aware, there is a woman named Marie Mason who is currently under house arrest in Michigan (separated from her family and friends in Ohio), awaiting trial for an ELF action that took place in the midwest almost a decade ago. Her visitors are being harrassed. Involved in her case is the snitch Frank Ambrose.

Marie Mason’s defense team has requested help doing preliminary research into a number of topics. So anyone with experience with the dangers of GMO, global warming, environmental collapse, and deforestation please read what they need and help out!

Well, Canada has refused to call polar bears “endangered”, while more evidence emerges about how screwed they are by climate change, and it looks like artic ice is melting even faster than expected. The magic global-warming quick-fix atmospheric sulphur-injection plan has will probably make everything worse by furthering ozone depletion, surprise surprise. Honey bees continue to disappear, and the pathogen behind sudden oak death syndrome is evolving and spreading up the western coast of North America. The US will be building dozens of coal power plants right next to national parks, and every liberal’s darling, the EU, will be building over 50 new coal plants. In slightly better news, the national park service has announced that they’ll be funding a bunch of new projects, mostly focused on maintaining the parks. We cynics at O.R.C. can’t help but suspect that this will somehow be used as an excuse for more logging roads and crap like that. And what’s that? It looks like Bush’s spotted owl plan means more logging! In fact, close to 900 scientists with the EPA reported political influence on their work from industry and government. Another “green” product has been debunked: Palm Oil is the major cause of deforestation in Indonesia. 17-year-old accused arsonist Michael Sykes (background of his story here) got his charges reduced and is now facing 10 years in prison. (His address for letters of support can be found here). Mohawks have set up barricades in Ontario to protest development, and Sioux tribal members in South Dakota have set up blockades to protest against the construction of a hog farm. Salmon-lovers are proposing to reintroduce salmon to the Upper Klamath Basin in Oregon. The Arizona legislature is considering withdrawing funds from state schools that teach anything that is deemed un-american and is contrary to capitalism, democracy, etc. (as well as banning minority-group student groups) by way of bill SB 1108. It looks like the government might finally have admitted that right-wing extremists are more dangerous than “eco-terrorists, although we’ll have to see if their level of infiltration agrees. To end on a positive note, a crocodile killed an illegal mangrove logger in Myanmar (often called Burma).

There’ve been a few internet-things related to the whole FBI provocateur “Anna” being in Elle Magazine thing (see our previous post). First of all, the rest of the article is now online, including all pages.

Secondly, it appears that someone has begun to detourn the magazine, claiming (with stickers, the pdf of which is available) that Elle wishes to retract the article. Elle, of course, denies the retraction.

An impassioned plea for intervention in the case of Eric McDavid has been posted around the internet, entitled “A Humble Appeal to the Intellectual and Literary World For Intervention in The Case of Eric McDavid” that describes anarchists as the caged canaries of the free-speech mine.

Finally, an excellent analysis of the Elle article has been posted as well. For an introduction to the case, see the earth first journal story about him, and visit his support website.

On Earth Day, the “Greenwash Guerrillas” pied neo-liberal, capitalist Thomas Friedman. [video footage]. Friedman was speaking at Brown University for Earth Day, where he went on about “market solutions” to global warming, when two pie-throwings ascended the stage and threw green whipped-cream pies at him. They then tossed leaflets explaining themselves to the crowd before escaping out the side door.

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40 miles east of Portland, Oregon, Bonneville Dam blocks the Columbia River. Bonneville Dam is maintained by The US Army Corp of Engineers and serves the Bonneville Power Adminstration (located in Portland). The dam has had a devastating effect on Columbia River’s salmon population, only a minority of which is able to make it up the fish-ladders to spawn. California sea lions have discovered the gathering of endangered fish at the base of the dam and have begun to eat them, naturally enough. But rather than remove the dam and restore the Columbia River to its natural balance, the government has decided to kill the protected (but not “endangered”) california sea lions, at the same time that fishing quotas are expected to go up 33%, proving that the government respects human, but not non-human, fishing.

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On April 21st, ALF Cascadia, of the decentralized, leaderless Animal Liberation Front, took credit for liberating mink from Jefferson Fur Farm in Jefferson, Oregon. According to the industry group Fur Commission USA (contact information here), 53 mink were released, but all were later recovered. Economic damages from destroyed records are estimated at around $5000. Below is the press release from the ALF:

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Reposted from Bombs & Shields
Palmerston North, Manawatu-Wanganui, New Zealand - Vandals stalled construction in the Manawatu River watershed by torching a $750,000 drilling machine. Multimillion-dollar construction projects have have sparked heated battles between current residents, environmental advocates and developers. While above ground eco-groups attempt to slog out compromises in the courts, clandestine saboteurs have been costing the construction industry millions in additional expenses each year. According to Malcolm Abernethy, a technical adviser with the Contractors’ Federation, small acts of arson and vandalism are a serious threat to industrial progress. “Every night something probably happens, but it’s not always reported.”

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