Rainforest Action Network's topics - tribe.net

GOING TO IQUITOS THIS SUMMER? VA A IQUITOS ESTE VERANO?

2008-08-03T22:29:16Z

PLEASE BRING INFANT, CHILDREN AND WOMEN'S CLOTHING, SHOES AND SCHOOL SUPPLIES.

POR FAVOR TRAIGAN ROPA PARA INFANTES, NINOS Y MUJERES. ADEMAS DE CALZADO, ZAPATOS Y ARTICULOS PARA ESCUELA.

You may contact Amazonistas for details at rareworlds@gmail.com or if you are Spanish speaking contact Amazon Action at rombolo@hotmail.com or call Marco Schneider at Phone: +51 65 605558; +51 193117475 while in Iquitos.

Para Ingles contacte Amazonistas para cualquier pregunta a rareworlds@gmail.com

Si habla espanol contactenos a rombolo@hotmail.com
Para contactarnos via telefonica en espanol llamenos a +51 65 605558 o +51 193117475 Pregunte por Marco Schneider

In Iquitos you may leave your donations at Morona 531

Para donaciones en iquitos puede ir directamente a morona 531

posted in Rainforest Action Network - 1 reply

Join the "No Meat Week" campaign: Help stop global warming!

2008-08-03T18:44:43Z

Did you know that if every American who eats meat daily decided to have one meat-free day a week, it would be the equivalent of taking 8 million cars off the roads?

• Animal agriculture causes about 18% of global human-induced green-house gas emissions

• Livestock produce 30-40% of total methane gas emissions

• Livestock occupy 30 percent of ice-free land on the planet, a major cause of deforestation

• Industrial meat production relies heavily on fossil fuels through fertilizer manufacturing and global transport

The emerging global warming crisis requires both personal change and industrial accountability. In addition to energy conservation, each of us can also limit our contribution to global warming by eating less meat and calling for a more sustainable livestock industry.

The goal of this one-week meat-fast is to provide a platform to raise awareness about how meat-consumption directly contributes to climate change.

Join now at:

http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/no-meat-week-help-stop-global-warming

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Please watch 'Justicia Now!'

2008-04-07T21:31:48Z

This is a documentary about ChevronTexaco's toxic legacy in the Northern Ecuadorian region of the Amazon rainforest and a courageous group of people called Los Afectados (The Affected Ones) who are seeking justice for the ensuing cancer, sickness and death in the largest environmental class action lawsuit in history.

http://people.tribe.net/9972804f-1e11-43db-96e6-342b4072dc35

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Looking for an Earth Woman Friendly community style living solution?

2008-03-10T22:52:00Z

There is a Meeting of the Kindred Spirits coming up March 29th! And
we do need to see some more Positive well integrated Female Energy in
this group who can work closely with others.

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

We are still looking to organize a group of volunteers to
help out some good folks one day out of the week, with some
organic gardening and we still do need someone to take Minutes
at the next meeting.

It would be possible, I would think, if there is a single female or
two out there who is cool about living closer to the Earth then
I may be able to provide a place for you to live, for
maybe 6 months out of the year up where I live in Northern
California.

If you can simply come to our next meeting on March 29th. - T

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

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Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

2008-03-06T14:04:08Z

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in Rainforest Action Network - 0 replies

Tasmanian Rainforest Blockade

2008-03-05T08:17:39Z

Vanity Fair article
http://people.tribe.net/knowledgeispower23/blog/7b688a12-1b7f-41ff-9546-9b1093ec6709

Front line view part 1
http://people.tribe.net/knowledgeispower23/blog/977be00b-e48e-407d-b6a4-9362a359e435

Front line view part 2
http://people.tribe.net/knowledgeispower23/blog/2bf1e8bb-1373-4e08-bd0b-7fa4e8b09d58

posted in Rainforest Action Network - 0 replies

Fraud Alert regarding North Coast Earth First! Aka NCEF! Media. Completely independent from any activist group!

2008-02-18T20:49:41Z

16 views since posting on Sunday, December 2, 2007
Location California

enlarge photo
NCEF! Media in Humboldt County Ca.(AKA NORTH COAST EARTH FIRST!), is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Active and legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group.

Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitimate environmental nonprofit:

From: northcoastjournal.com/100407/...004.html

October 4, 2007

"Money On Trees"

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: northcoastjournal.com/101107/...011.html

"Trees Foundation Wins"

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

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posted in Rainforest Action Network - 0 replies

Marc Emery, Prince of Pot, takes Time 4 Hemp!

2008-01-30T05:51:10Z

Marc Emery is called the 'Prince of Pot' and claims to have sold more marijuana seeds than anyone in the world. To date, no one has disputed that claim. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, he is the founder of Cannabis Culture magazien, and considered by the U.S. government to be the biggest drug kingpin in history.

Just days before embarking on his 16-city 'Farewell Tour Across Canada' (and a few short weeks before entering prision for a 10-year stay), Marc was nice enough to sit down and take Time 4 Hemp.

Featured Music Artists:

The Individuals
Muck Sticky
Negative Index
Bob Marley
John Lennon

If you get a few minutes of free time, check out my new MySpace Time 4 Hemp Group Site at:
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Please be kind enough to share this information with everyone who you know would enjoy these free downloads.

Keep Strong!

Casper Leitch
Creator/Host: Time 4 Hemp
http://www.Time4Hemp.com

posted in Rainforest Action Network - 0 replies

PRESS STATEMENT: Revised 12.06.2007, Black File 7001, Freelance Journalist inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness.

2007-12-06T14:48:39Z

PRESS STATEMENT: Revised 12.06.2007, Black File 7001, Freelance Journalist inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness.

Freelance Journalist inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness. “Black File 7001” is a work of investigative journalism that initially began in 1994. Early in 1999, I completed a covert assignment with the FBI lasting five years after having been previously requested to stand-down from a fulltime university curriculum with an inactive law enforcement background for possibly twelve months. Immediately thereafter I entered the Federal Witness Protection Program (WitSec) and ever since have continued to experience the U.S. government’s use of psychological torture practices and political retribution by the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration. Multiple actionable offenses have been committed under state, federal and international law while the culpable agents and agencies remain shielded from civil and criminal prosecution by the administration’s threat or issuance of national security letters, which prevent legal discovery and subvert the rule of law. The U.S. government does torture, I am one of its American victims and am requesting a humanitarian intervention before it is too late.

EDITORIAL FOREWORD:

Producing the report titled “Black File 7001” has experienced the threat or issuance of national security letters by the Bush-Cheney administration, a subordinate agent directly under the administration threatening me with the invention of a criminal charge if I publish and the suppression of this story by the same Democratic Congress that falsely promised an end to the money laundering operation in Iraq that remains perpetuated by the insidious genocide of our American military service members and other innocent human beings throughout the world.

As a former lifelong humanitarian member of what use to be the Republican Party until 2000 and a person who also voted for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, I charge the neoconservatives with having filled the bowels of this Trojan Horse Republican Party with the stench of operating a continuing criminal enterprise under the guise of bringing democracy to the world.

The U.S. government infrastructure has been overthrown and this administration has declared constitutional civil war against the United States of America. The American people must organize in a lawful and peaceful revolution that mirrors and surpasses the civil rights era. We must march on Washington, D.C. and picket the corporate offices of the propaganda ministries to force their coverage of your protests and displayed messages.

It is critically important that before the next election we must demand Democratic Congressional members to openly support publically funded elections; not for profit universal healthcare; free or affordable higher education for all citizens; the meaningful development alternative fuel sources; the abatement of the conditions causing the honey bee populations from disappearing from around the world (later in the primary story I will invite you to read why noticing the smallest of G-d’s creatures holds the largest messages); and the criminal investigation of the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration regarding the Black File 7001 report.

Career politicians, regardless of political affiliations who fail the muster of the American people should be removed and replaced with genuine representatives before the next voting cycle.

Americans must become the partisans of liberty to reclaim the dream and promise of America and our inalienable rights as human beings. The jackbooted fascists of today must be prevented from emulating the treason of U.S. Senator Prescott Bush through their perversion of peace for the profits of war. The American mainstream has already been herded towards the invisible and tangible death camps of democracy. In those places you will endured conditions far worse than any physical torture where other Americans like me have been left for dead for over thirty years. These human beings of whom I speak are not criminals or terrorists; they are honorable American citizens who answered their country’s call to duty for special covert government service only to become a disposable population and the hidden dirty secret of the U.S. government.

Since 1970, one thousand and eighty (1,080) American citizens have existed as something cousin to death camp victims from the destructive effects of the Federal Witness Protection Program. These non-criminal federal witnesses and American veterans of voluntary covert government service became the unknowing test subjects in a clandestine torture experiment that exists as the precursor model for converting a freethinking U.S. civilian population into a self-consuming enslaved society. Within the death camp known as “WitSec” these human beings are subjected to the insidious methods of psychological torture that systematically erode the individual sense of self-identity until the will to live has been lost.

ABOUT ME:

My WitSec No. is 7001, I am a husband, father, writer, and freelance journalist who remained inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness and am now ready to surface under guarded conditions with the firsthand story of how a minority group of honorable American citizens are being psychologically tortured and politically persecuted by the U.S. government. Immediately I am seeking the support of the American public and progressive news media; the representation of a listed creative agent; contract negotiations with book publishers and the motion picture industry; a university initiative with an accredited school of journalism to include lecturing options and the sanitized conversion of my college records; and communication platforms with Ms. Oprah Winfrey and Mr. George Clooney via the Smoke House Studio.

By comparison to the physical injuries that I have endured from trauma and other accidents, the lasting effects of psychological torture are far worse. This form of torture is sourced from the fascist mindset of the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration through their commissions of actionable offenses and political retributions. As a veteran of voluntary covert government service who operated undercover for five years while contracted by the FBI as an agent of the federal government, I state unequivocally and categorically that the U.S. government does torture human beings. As an American citizen and non-criminal federal witness let the record show that I am declaring myself as a torture victim of the U.S. government. With my soul dying and the body giving signs that it wants to follow I offer that no truer words have ever been written than “give me liberty or give me death” or that “the worse death is a life without hope.”

Having previously been blessed with an out of body experience during trauma that was caused by the U.S. government and prior to my recovery in advance of relearning how to walk, I am not frightened by a natural death. The experience of dying for me confirmed the Socratic belief that the human soul is made of two parts with one half being a physical finite and the other a non-physical infinite. Life as seen from the eyes of the body is an illusion or one half of a duality. It was possible to see from two separate and paralleling perspectives at the same time. The physical world appeared normal while my body felt the tremendous force of being pulled into the earth. Initially from within the spiritual realm there was no ugliness, no beauty, no gender, and only muted colors with humanoid forms. Before I lost the sight of my physical body, the last human emotion that I felt was an all encompassing global pity that literally enveloped the earth with my living sentient energy. Soon I was sitting in space and the beauty of the earth returned with the comforting tenderness of a loving mother and at my back was the warmth of wisdom and strength from a fatherly sun. A few moments passed and my two halves were made whole again to continue the journey that brought me to this place of inhuman suffering.

In self-definition I am a Humanitarian-Universal-Infrastructuralist or a person who has spent a lifetime identifying and interrelating the commonalities between myself and all known sentient beings and other components within the universe from which to become more human.

My views of the current U.S. President and Vice President find them culpable for treason, egregious crimes against humanity and international terrorism while wearing a mask of insipid divinity. Clearly these judicially selected ten cent millionaires are criminal sociopaths who function from a series of learned behaviors used to produce a desired result while being incapable of recognizing any genuine sense of right and wrong.

These individuals and their followers bare the marks that brand their names with the gamatria of the most inhuman and deceptive beings that walk among us on the earth in legion with what some would call the antichrist. Although I have never considered myself worthy of the blessings, respectfully I believe that throughout my life there have been a number of occasions when my being was touched by the many faces of G-d. With all of that said, one should never confuse spiritual currency with political capitol since the latter is most often sourced from the abyss of false profits, which brought the genocide over six million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals in Nazi Germany; the slaughter of tribal nations in America; the turning of human beings against their brothers and sisters throughout history; the selling of children, women and men as slaves; the gang rape and victimization of Arabic women who are then whipped as criminals; and the 911 terrorist attacks used to perpetuate war profiteering and oil piracy for those who drink from a rivers of human blood and suffering. Considering my temporary acquaintance with death, I believe the purest form of spiritual worship that collectively joins us with the universe is simply the individual act of at least attempting to recognize the human being in all people.

BLACK FILE 7001:

“Black File 7001” is a work of investigative journalism that began in 1994 as an academic prospectus with the goals of publishing books, producing movies, film documentaries, and developing a lecture syllabus with the thinking who better to teach than a person with skin in the game. While in a fulltime academic setting and shortly after beginning this protect, I discovered actionable intelligence that was brought forward for case installation at the federal level. Already possessing an inactive law enforcement background and specialized skill sets where few if any training manuals exist, the FBI requested my voluntary assistance for a projected twelve months. Five years later I completed the FBI undercover group one investigation having successfully penetrated four organized crime groups while never being afforded one day off for that entire period of time. Since other federal law enforcement agencies are not equipped to handle long duration personal security operations, I entered the Federal Witness Protection Program (WitSec) as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness in 1999. Nearly immediately after entering the WitSec the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration unthinkably began outing my active covert status. Since exiting the WitSec in good standing early in 2001, political retributions by the U.S. government have continued to terrorize me with actionable offenses and the tactics of psychological torture. These culpable acts additionally serve as a passive sanction for the assassination of an American citizen and a former covert agent of the federal government. This story is uncharted territory and I am unaware of any other writer/journalist who has actually penetrated this fraudulent clandestine federal program, which shrouds itself beneath an undeserved veil of secrecy that exists in the absence of public scrutiny and meaningful congressional oversight. The latter might explain why multiple action notices regarding this investigation have gone unanswered by the craven Democratic Congress that I helped elected to office with their false promise of ending the corporatist money laundering operation in Iraq.

Within the next 30 day or by New Year’s Day 2008, I will publish an extensive sanitized report that has been redacted from a much larger work. Please communicate with me and contact your local election campaign committees to demand that your congressional members take action in this matter.

American citizens are being used as the unknowing test subjects in a clandestine torture experiment shrouded within the Federal Witness Protection Program (WitSec). Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses (1,080) are a special minority class of American citizens in title only who are being used as a laboratory control sample for the applied tactics of terrorism and psychological torture (psyops) on a U.S. civilian population by the U.S. government.

Writing remains one of my two fragile anchors holding me to this world and a federal agent (L.H.M.) directly under the Bush-Cheney administration has telephonically communicated “you have a lot of people in high places afraid to death that you are going to destroy their programs…and if you publish a book, the government will invent a criminal charge against you.” After refusing not to publish with an invitation to that federal agent’s handlers to “go pound salt up their asses”, a series of actionable offenses were committed against me in political retribution under state, federal and international law. These same entities on several occasions have outed my classified status that with each culpable act, serves to intensify what has become a standing passive sanction for the assassination of an American citizen and former covert agent of the federal government.

As a physically disabled person from two trauma accidents caused by the federal government or incurred in the line of duty during covert government service, I applied for Social Security Disability Benefits (SSDB) through the required classified channels. This process required that I utilize my second WitSec Inspector (A.S.) and the Social Security Administration’s Sensitive Operations Division (SOD) that was established for persons in covert-ops, the CIA and the U.S. State Department working oversees. The Social Security Disability Benefits were authorized, but following my refusal not to publish the WitSec and SSA’s SOD conspired to punitively withdraw my SSDB. This occurred prior to beginning treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer in 2004. The government’s own federal court judge who heard the SSA case issued several letters of complaint to the Sensitive Operations Division, charging that office had provided the court with erroneous information and that the SOD’s delay in responding was contemptuous to the point of preventing a fair hearing. Two months past while the SOD and WitSec crafted their evidence and my SSDB’s claim entered the appeals stage. During the initial SSDB process, repeated telephonic conversations had been made with and between the WitSec and the SOD to insure that the production of the SSA documents would not out my covert status. After multiple assurances that complete security would be maintained, the WitSec and SOD deliberately or at the least through total gross incompetence filed documents that outed my covert status by commingling my identities in violation of several federal laws and a federal court seal. After the matter was sent to the SSA Hearing and Appeals Board where it remained for two years that federal agency notified my private attorney they had lost my classified government file in violation of the same laws allegedly protecting my covert status. A copy was returned by my attorney and two weeks later my benefits were denied again. The SSDB matter is pending on civil appeal to the federal court where I am certain it will be again denied by the government’s crafting of the evidence. Lastly the WitSec and SOD conspired to deconstruct my only viable work history by purging a covert front business located in Texas from the regular SSA computer system and additionally failed under contract to sanitize and convert my previous Social Security records into my new Jewish name. Allegedly I had been employed by that Texas front business for over a decade as a construction estimator that for all I knew might have found Dick Cheney answering the telephones on an earlier occasion. Following the WitSec and SOD’s punitive acts of political retribution, during two subsequent visits to the local SSA office the computer screen was so void of information that the office staffers contacted their supervisors to report they believed their computer system had been penetrated by hackers.

Prior to 911 and before the USDOJ had been prostituted by this corrupt administration, I was able to assist in the covert criminal prosecution of my first U.S. Deputy Marshal/WitSec Inspector (J.D.) for his theft of government funds.

After 911 and following my refusal not to publish under threat of the invention of a criminal charge by the U.S. government that same former WitSec Inspector/federal felon was released from prison and allowed to stalk me. While near death from chemotherapy and radiation treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer that same federal felon physically accosted me by the arm inside of a warehouse superstore. Thirty-six security notices went unanswered by the U.S. Marshals Service’s Federal Witness Security Program Headquarters.

The second WitSec Inspector (A.S.) eventually came to my home with a regular deputy marshal who did not have a WitSec security clearance, which further outed my covert status and sarcastically laughed that he had forgotten to tell me that the WitSec Headquarters’ mailing address had been changed after 911 and that under the new U.S. Patriot Act my only means of communicating with headquarters was directly through him. That WitSec Inspector continued to smile while stating that my classified information and security notices had been circulated by several staffers without WitSec clearances before it got to where I thought it was being sent. When asked about the other Deputy Marshal’s security clearance, the WitSec Inspector stated “owe I use non-WitSec personnel all the time to handle WitSec matters.” This same WitSec Inspector has committed multiple actionable offences and has outed my covert status numerous times while creating a growing mortal threat environment around my geographic location.

Many of the public self-aggrandizing claims and testimonials given before the U.S. Congress and published by the Federal Witness Protection Program will soon be debunked within my Black File 7001 report.

Following the WitSec and SOD’s removal of my work history with their deletion of the covert front business from the SSA computer system and even though I am a very capable and multitalented individual with strong skill sets, given this act and the government’s failure to perform under written contracts, I have been unable to find employment after submitting over 3000 job applications. However by comparison and in direct contrast to my own personal situation, the first WitSec Inspector (J.D.) after his release from federal prison for the theft of several thousand dollars in U.S. government funds is now gainfully employed and processing the private financial records of American citizens as a mortgage loan officer. Under this administration criminals and traitors are rewarded and the good servants of the American people become part of a disposable population.

Out of 18,000 federal witnesses, 16,920 are criminal and custodial federal witnesses and 1,080 of that total number are “non-criminal federal witnesses.” The six percent who are non-criminal federal witnesses are comprised of honorable American citizens from every cultural identity within our society. These same veterans of voluntary covert government service took that extra step above and beyond the call of duty to participate in our system while defending our constitutional democracy and the American people. Within that minority of six percent I am an even smaller number of non-criminal federal witnesses who entered covert government service with an inactive law enforcement background and specialized skill sets of a nature that possess few if any training manuals.

The ACLU of which I am a member has tried to bring four previous cases involving non-criminal federal witnesses through the Washington, D.C. office. With each lawsuit brought by the ACLU, the Bush-Cheney administration has issued national security letters to prevent the legal discovery of evidence and thus subverted the rule of law. However, in my possession is the actual physical evidence that includes but is not limited to federal court documents proving the outing of my covert status; the federal court documents of the first WitSec Inspector (J.D.); lawfully produced audiotape recordings of WitSec personnel and others; and the proof of warrantless wiretapping, data mining, the electronic theft of intellectual property; et al. One should remember General Douglas MacArthur’s island hopping campaign during WWII. As that relates to this matter, I am bypassing a slugfest with Goliath that would only serve to hold me in stasis with my foot in the courtroom door. Instead I invite all freethinking human beings to a Greek debate in the court of public opinion. Criticism and contemplation are necessary to keep a flourishing democracy alive. Let the U.S. government bring forth its best criminal cowards to stand on the square with me in open examination before the American people and the world.

THE TREASON OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE:

It is also my intention to challenge the blatant lies told before the U.S. Congress by Condoleezza Rice regarding the administration’s knowledge of events prior to 911 – the FBI and CIA did have operational joint counterterrorism taskforce offices since the mid 90s.

“A litany of lies about 911, Iraq and now Iran – There is one point that I am compelled to insert within this document beyond the scope of its primary focus and here seems as good a place as anywhere. A covert FBI Special Agent and former teammate in charge of two special operations groups who worked in the field with me and whom I supported in the hunt for Eric Robert Rudolph also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, revealed during the mid 90s that both the FBI and CIA had established joint counterterrorism taskforce offices to exchange foreign and domestic intelligence. This fact directly contradicts Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before congress regarding the August 6, 2001 PDB Briefing Report titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”, during which Rice stated that a fractionalization existed between federal agencies, which prevented intelligence information from being communicated to the Bush administration. The most blatant lie came when Rice stated that no joint FBI/CIA taskforce offices existed before or during that time, while alleging joint taskforce offices were being established forthwith. Further supporting a charge of perjury against Condoleezza Rice and I believe grounds for treason, appears to be former CIA Director, George Tenet’s public testimony regarding actionable intelligence in July 2001 regarding Osama bin Laden’s plan to attack American targets using commercial jetliners. July 2001 marked the last time that I flew on a commercial aircraft on my way to lecture at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia and an occasion when I exchanged passing remarks with former U.S. Senator Gary Hart sitting near me. The actionable intelligence was clearly suppressed by the Bush-Cheney administration. In other words, given these facts and the known associations between the 911 Terrorists; the family of Osama bin Laden; the Saudi Arabian Royal family; the United Arab Emirates (poised to purchase 25% of Citibank and 40% of the U.S. and British Stock Markets); and the oil trading partners, personal friends and business associates within the Bush-Cheney syndicate it appears that the United States of America was allowed to be attacked by a foreign enemy to act as a protagonist event for the perpetuation of war profiteering and oil piracy. Therefore I strongly believe that if the unveiled enemies of the American people were not politically shielded, they would have already been prosecuted for treason, conspiracy, racketeering, money laundering, operating a continuing criminal enterprise, international terrorism, and crimes against humanity.”

SPECIAL NOTE CONCERNING IRAN:

Before the 2006 election the U.S. Intelligence agencies already knew that Iran did not have a “secret nuclear weapons program.” That report was presented to the Bush-Cheney administration and was politically suppressed with instructions given between the lines to craft new evidence. The facts are that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has not been able to achieve a greater rate than 3.8% enrichment, which is even a lower percentage than what is required to bring a peaceful nuclear power plant online and far less than the enrichment level needed to produce a nuclear weapon. The psychology of substituting sexuality for the creation of illegal wars with oil rich sovereign nations, seems the iconic aphrodisiac of this administration when laminating that over sixty-eight elected Republican politicians have been charged and convicted of sexual crimes against children; that George W. Bush, a known cocaine user (sexual stimulant), deserted his post in the Air Nation Guard when they began drug testing; that both Bush and Cheney took multiple deferments from military service during Vietnam so that other Americans could die in their places; that Dick Cheney made use of a Freudian phallic extension in the form of a shotgun to shot his friend in the head during a hunting expedition; that Dick Cheney has a pneumatic penile implant to achieve an erection; and that the nude photograph of George W. Bush in college displays an unremarkable penis. Add these factors together with the absolute power over the U.S. military and the world will recognize a six headed monster with twelve hearts that numbers 666 and produces the political fodder that destroys the sovereign thought process, creates a toxic society and consumes the collective human soul. Plainly stated devil cannot exist without followers.

MY REQUEST TO MEDIA, UNIVERSITIES, PUBLISHERS, MOVIE PRODUCERS, AND THE WORLD OF HUMAN BEINGS:

While my reaching out might become the closing scene in a lifelong journey to become more human, knowingly I choose my own death over remaining a torture victim and slave within an uncultivatable existence where self-nurturing and remaining true to one’s own nature is an impossibility. The Democratic Congressional members that I helped elect have remained silent with the full knowledge of this matter and only a handful of good human beings seem to be listening for the moment. Already a subordinate federal agent directly under the Bush-Cheney administration has telephonically threatened that if I publish a book the government will invent a criminal charge against me. This is not the America that I defended and have nourished. Nevertheless if we are to remain a world of human beings, we the people must publically exam the U.S. government’s ongoing psychological torture of up to 1,080 Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses who are American citizens and your good neighbors. Currently I have established online locations on YouTube, Tribe.net, Comcast, and have posted on the message board at The Ed Schultz Show website where these American citizens can share their stories with other human beings and possibly begin to reclaim their individual sense of self-identity through these communication platforms. One non-criminal federal witness has already communicated they are hiding outside the U.S. to protect themselves from U.S. government torture. Recently I attempted to communicate with a well known actor’s movie studio and was informed that I must have a listed creative agent to represent my story before they will be legally able to communicate with me. Therefore and in as much that I would dare to hope to restore my own life back to the place where it should have already been, I am seeking the representation of a listed Creative Agent, Business Negotiations with members from the Publishing and Motion Picture Industries, and a University Initiative from an accredited School of Journalism where I might combine all of these components within a flourishing academic setting to create a lecture syllabus and continue writing. Please do not think me a selfish person, because I have remained one of the most extroverted and giving human beings you could ever know. This academic and professional prospectus has endured as my long-range plan since beginning this journalism project and is one of the few reasons why I have not ended my own life after experiencing something cousin to an extraordinary rendition to a clandestine blacksite torture facility that exists invisibly within the plain-sight of American society. Please do not let this story die with me and challenge the validity of any member of the Democratic Congress for their repeated failures to respond to several action notices regarding this matter.

Beyond the above I wish to offer one final piece of personal information. When I relocated to this area I had no intention of becoming involved with anyone and had anticipated reclaiming my academic standing to achieve my goals in life. While visiting a local bookstore and coffee house, I met the finest human being whom I have ever known and today that person is my wife. Together we raised our young child from her previous marriage and I have been blessed by the experience of being a father. Had it not been for my wife’s medical insurance I would not be here today writing this story. My wife retires at the end of this year and our child is now attending a university. What that means for me living on a fixed monthly annuity income and having been waited out by the WitSec while my saving depleted is that I will not be able to afford the additional $600.00 a month for my portion of the medical insurance policy. Further I have been unable to move in any direction to build the life that I wanted from the resulting harms caused by the WitSec cocoon that I will address in detail within the redacted report that follows. To protect my family and legally separate myself from my wife in the event of recurring illness, I am preparing to file the divorce papers on my desk. Never will I forgive or forget that the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration has systematically deconstructed my family and prevented my equality as a person and an American citizen while psychologically torturing me in ways that have already killed other Americans who are non-criminal federal witnesses through suicide and medical neglect. This deconstruction of my family unit is comparatively symbolic to the overthrow of the U.S. government infrastructure by the international crime consortium and the same coconspiratorial war profiteers who attacked the United States of America on September 11, 2001. Having lived so long as the shell of an American citizen in title only, if I am unable to be made whole again in America, then as a torture victim and dissident under political persecution I am prepared to request asylum from the government of Canada. Should that fail and if I cannot be restored then I am ready to leave this world for the peace of oblivion and wish each of you mozel tov.

THE QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED BY A GROWING NUMBER OF HUMAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP YOU?

First please do not attempt to send any money I believe that it is possible to earn a living with the years invested in this story and I prefer paying my own way, which has remained the purpose of my labors while enduring U.S. government torture. Profoundly from a place of extreme isolation your concerns are priceless gifts that have touched me deeper than words could possibly express and I truly feel your human warmth and compassion.

Beyond that human inclusion the most important act of support is not to let this story die from a lack of response or another empty promise by the congress just so this matter will be “disappeared” like the 1,080 American patriots who are non-criminal federal witnesses in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Please meditate for the good energy of the universe to encompass the lives of all human beings and continue to contact any person or organization who will if nothing else at least feel the truth of this torture story: Democratic Party headquarters around the nation; elected representatives who truly wish to remain in office; U.S. and international human rights organizations; members of the progressive news media (The Ed Schultz Show, Air America Radio, Democracy Now, The Nation Magazine, I.N.N. International News Net, Studs Terkel, the ACLU, Civil Rights Attorneys; etc.); the free and independent sovereign nations of the world (Vancouver BC, Canada, UK, Italy, Spain; etc.); the International Court of Justice aka the World Court and Cour internationale de Justice; and any other conduit of communication that might wish to know, share or actuate this true story.

Ms. Oprah Winfrey and Mr. George Clooney are two people whom I admire for their humanitarian and creative contributions to the world. With their support this story will not be silenced and human lives will be saved. Please send each of them “one” simple note requesting their support of the “Black File 7001” story and include my website and e-mail addresses. The movie “Syriana” spoke to me at a very personal level with Bob’s betrayal by the government he served that ultimately resulted in his death. Oprah Winfrey's all-girl leadership academy in South Africa is only one of the endless humanitarian contributions made to the world by this great human being. The education system has played a significant part of my life with a trilingual professional educator in my immediate family, a child currently attending a university and my own employment with the FBI in the third year of a fulltime academic curriculum. The purpose of that covert government service was initiated to prevent national and international organized crime organizations from distributing methamphetamine within the public school systems and throughout the United States of America.

For a time I prevented the false prophets who professed a love of children and humanity from preying on the innocent, but the “war on drugs” like the “war on terrorism” are only political mantras meant to perpetuate and fatten the cash cows of government profiteers.

PLEASE CONTACT MR. GEORGE CLOONEY WITH ONE LETTER ONLY:

Agent:
Mr. George Clooney
C/o Bryan Lourd
Creative Artists Agency
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
424.288.2000
424.288.2900 fax

Publicist:
Mr. George Clooney
C/o Stan Rosenfield & Associates
2029 Century Park East
Suite 1190
Los Angeles, CA 90067 USA
310.286.7474
310.286.2255 fax

Movie Studio:
Smoke House
Attn: Mr. George Clooney
C/o Warner Bros.
4000 Warner Blvd., Bldg. 15
Burbank, California 91522 USA
818.954.4840
818.954.4860 fax

PLEASE CONTACT MS. OPRAH WINFREY WITH ONE LETTER ONLY:

The Oprah Winfrey Show
Attn: Ms. Oprah Winfrey
http://www.oprah.com/email/email_landing.jhtml

BLACK FILE 7001 CONTACT INFORMATION:

E-mail:
BlackFile7001@comcast.net

Tribe.net:
http://people.tribe.net/49395906-0c49-4c98-b92a-79f37b7927cb

You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/BlackFile7001

Comcast: Currently blocking my ability to establish a website online.

The Ed Schultz Show (Message Boards – “The Media” Section)
http://www.bigeddieradio.com

posted in Rainforest Action Network - 0 replies

NCEF! Media sabotaged! Hijacked by lone wingnut! Accused of fraud and embezzlement!

2007-11-07T03:54:48Z

NCEF! Media in Humboldt County, Ca. is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Other legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group. Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitamate environmental nonprofit:

Dog Days
From: http://northcoastjournal.com/100407/cover1004.html
October 4, 2007
Money On Trees

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: http://northcoastjournal.com/101107/news1011.html

Trees Foundation Wins

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

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TRUTH IS FREE; so is my RETREAT --Vermont

2007-11-05T18:10:16Z

I'm looking to network with folks, to extend an invitation to visit Bald Mountain Retreat (www.baldmountainretreat.com) as my guest. Like-minded people who appreciate rustic accommodations are welcome to come up at no charge. (Those who require a private room can inquire about those accommodations as well.)
Basically, I'm offering people the opportunity to come stay with a retired naturopathic doctor in a truly amazing natural setting, secluded, idyllic, peaceful...
Also, if you might like to lead a retreat, please contact me.
Thank you and you are welcome,
Dr David

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Free MP3 featuring Steve Hager - High Times editor

2007-07-25T04:23:00Z

A rare interview with High Times Editor, Steve Hager, is free to download at http://www.Time4Hemp.com as is a new music interview featuring Lynnette Shaw (California hemp activists and singer/song writer).

If you're a fan of High Times magazine (and, who isn't?) this segment of the 'Time 4 Hemp PotCast Series' is one you DO NOT want to miss.

And if good music is what your are looking for - take time to enjoy the fun segment with Lynnette Shaw and discover her remarkable history with the Hemp Movement.

Also posted to the http://www.Time4Hemp.com site is another segment from the classic 'Time 4 Hemp Television Series' - featuring Dennis Perone, one of the founders of the Medical Marijuana Movement.

If you get time, check out and join the Time4Hemp.com forum and/or help yourself to any or all of the other free video and audio downloads.

Please forward this message to your friends &/or copy and post the above information anywhere and everywhere you feel people, who would enjoy these interviews, will be most likely to see it.

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