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BOF proposal Pitchfork Demands Pitchfork WOPR |
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An Interview with co-founder, Neila Crocker-Owen Interviewer: Neila, how did The Pitchfork Rebellion begin? Neila: My husband Day retired from his real estate job, closed our health food store, and we moved to the country. Now we grow organic vegetables and live a spiritually-oriented life in Greenleaf, Oregon, near beautiful Triangle Lake. But soon after moving to this coastal mountain range, we began to hear horror stories from our neighbors. Our neighbors told us tales of poison from the sky! They told us of Timber Industry Helicopters legally assaulting forest dwellers with aerially sprayed pesticides (herbicides are classified by the EPA as pesticides thus we use the latter term). They told us of children rushed to the hospital after helicopter pesticide sprays. They told us of outrageously high cancer death statistics of children at Triangle Lake School. They told us of the emotional terror inflicted by the helicopters spraying cancer-causing poisons near the bedroom windows of children and oldsters alike. Vietnam and Gulf War vets described the terror of war flashbacks stimulated by the constant attack on our community of these low-flying, jarringly loud, pesticide spraying Timber Industry helicopters. They told us of poisoned water, poisoned soil, poisoned air, and poisoned crops. They told us of many weird illnesses attributable to the legal pesticide assault on citizens, including still-births and deformed babies, everything from the inconvenience of regular soar throats and flu-like-symptoms to the ultimate inconvenience: death. Our neighbors explained that, nearly 100% of the time that the Timber Industry does a clear-cut – and our entire coastal mountain rage is a checkerboard of clearcuts; we forest dwellers are completely surrounded by an expanding network of clear-cuts – they follow that with the spraying of pesticides, often by helicopters. Although the government agencies claim that these pesticides are safe, the experience of the forest dwellers who have seen their children rushed to the hospital immediately after a helicopter sprays is that they are NOT SAFE! So, hearing these stories from many neighbors, my husband and I began to hold meetings in our home where folks could share their personal experiences with the Timber Industry herbicides/pesticides, as well as other matters of mutual concern. These meetings led to a demonstration that we called The Pitchfork Rebellion. Over fifty neighbors participated in that demonstration, and though that number may not sound large by big-city standards, it was certainly the largest demonstration about anything in the history of little Greenleaf! Our total population is not much more than fifty, though we are part of a network of small, blink-and-you-missed-it towns most Oregonians have never heard of that string the Highway 36 corridor between Mapleton and Junction City: Swiss Home, Tide, Deadwood, Brickerville, Triangle Lake, Horton, Blachly, Low Pass, and Cheshire. On a Winter day almost two years ago, we held the provocatively named Pitchfork Rebellion demonstration. We held the demonstration because, as reported by the Eugene Weekly (the only newspaper willing to cover the demonstration), we are shocked that our government is letting us be poisoned by aerially poison assault! Poison that we can taste in our mouth. Poison that we can smell. Poison that we feel burn our skin. We chose the name Pitchfork Rebellion to emphasize the fact that we are not some sort of big-city environmental group. Rather, we are the forest dwellers, the country folk who are being poisoned by the Timber Industry. We are peaceful folks, but when you poison our kids you better find a place to hide! You poison our kids and we will come after you! With pitchforks and neighbors! (And with lawsuits and new laws!) That demonstration was described thusly in the words of the subsequent Eugene Weekly front-page article of March 16, 2006: “Drive west along Oregon’s Highway 36, past Triangle Lake into the Blachly-Greenleaf-Deadwood area, and you’ll find yourself in coastal mountain country…. It should be pretty. But the clear-cut hills that rise steeply from the highway are an eyesore…. Families own the lowlands, but city-based timber companies hold deeds to most of the hilltops. They manage them for short-term profit, clear-cutting swaths of forest on 15- year rotations, then dousing the naked slopes with herbicides…. You’ll likely pass more logging trucks than cars on the highway. The sound of helicopters is as regular as birdsong. It’s been this way for decades…. “But something snapped in Blachly recently…. You could see it on the side of the highway on Feb.11, at the base of a particularly homely clear- cut. About 50 folks in jeans and baseball hats held hand-printed cardboard signs reading “No Spray” amd “Health is Wealth”. They took turns at a microphone, lambasting big timber and pesticide companies for poison- ing them for profit, politicians for failing to pass substantive laws to protect their farms and families, and media for not noticing. Their mantra: “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!” This, they announced, was the beginning of something big. An uphill battle, but one absolutely necessary to protect their land and families. This was the start of The Pitchfork Rebellion.” That article by investigative reporter Kera Abraham went on for many more pages, documenting our struggle in great detail. She likened my husband, Day, to David fighting Goliath, the Goliath in this case being the pesticide and timber industries. It was an excellent article and opened many doors to us, including a meeting with the Governor’s environmental representative, Mike Carrier. However, in the nearly two years since that article was published, we have learned many shocking things about our State and Federal government agencies – including the fact that they have been co-opted by multi-national corporations. The shocking results of our investigation of these agencies will now be shared with the public. We are peaceful folk, but you mess with our kids and we will come after you! We’ll take the war to your own front door! Nevertheless, we are absolutely into nonviolence, being practitioners of Gandhian philosophy, as was Martin Luther King. (Interview to be continued in future issue.) |
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