“Some People Just Don’t Get It”

A Conversation with Bruce Anderson, Editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, June 13, 1990; Reprinted in Timber Wars, © 1994 Common Courage Press.

Bruce Anderson conducted this interview with Judi Bari at Highland Hospital two weeks after she was car-bombed. It is significant primarily because it provides an extensive snapshot of the state of conflict on the eve of Redwood Summer. It also provides a good sense of Judi Bari’s state of mind at the time.  While certainly shaken to the core, Bari’s resolve was still as resolute as ever (even though she had a hard time seeing it herself sometimes)…

Bari: Since we aren’t going to be so loud, keep the door open a little bit. I hate these fucking windows that don’t open. I want to get a glass cutter and cut a little square in it. How do they expect people to get well in a room painted all white with windows that don’t open, with no air, and food prepared by a chef they hired from the airlines?

AVA: You’re not permitted to talk about the bombing itself at all-or the ramifications?

Bari: No.

AVA: But you can talk about when it went boom, or whatever it did?

Bari: Well, it did go boom. I will agree that it went boom. That’s about all.

AVA: You left Ukiah on a Tuesday night? Remember, you said you were going to call me?

Bari: I’m going to have a hard time remember­ing dates…There was a meeting on Tuesday night with the gyppos, and I think we spent the night in Redwood Valley—me, Dakota Sid, Utah Phillips, and Joanna Robinson…

AVA: Joanna Robinson is Mrs. Utah Phillips?

Bari: No, she’s Joanna Robinson.

AVA: Is she married to him?

Bari: Yes. He is Mr. Joanna Robinson. (laughs)

AVA: Okay, all right.

Bari: You never learn. It doesn’t matter; I can purge your papers, I can burn them—I can do any­thing, and you never learn. (laughs)

AVA: Judi’s my harshest critic. So you went to Seeds of Peace…

Bari: Yeah. There was a meeting at Seeds of Peace. and we left Wednesday afternoon to get there for an evening meeting. and that night I slept at somebody’s house in Berkeley. Then the next morn­ing Darryl came over and we started to rehearse music, because I never get a chance to play any­more and I’m losing my ability to perform—so we rehearsed about two songs, and we decided to go back to the Seeds house and rehearse with George, too. So we got in the car to drive back to the Seeds of Peace house, and it was on the way to the Seeds of Peace house that…

AVA: And, from the Seeds of Peace you were going to Santa Cruz…

Bari: We were going to Santa Cruz that evening where the gig was. We were on our way to rehearse for the gig.

AVA: People up north are saying that there’s no way they could have stuck the bomb in your car up there at the gyppo (contract logger) meeting, because your vehicle was clearly visible from inside the room

Bari: No comment.

AVA: Sothe bomb went offand the next thing you knew you were in the hospital…

Bari: The next thing I knew it was Sister Morphine-from shot to shot.

AVA: Actually, I think there’s an old song…

Bari: Yeah that’s what I was referring to, “Come on, Sister Morphine.” I will talk about that. I didn’t want to live. I wanted to die. I begged them to let me die.

AVA: It was that painful?

Bari: It was real bad. It’s still pretty bad. Right now I’m okay. I wasn’t very okay this morning. I’m not just here for fun. It’s not just a show, I’m really sick. That’s why I’m not doing press interviews, except for the AVA, which is a sick newspaper any­way, so it doesn’t matter. (laughs) It hurt so bad, that I just begged them to put me out, and they told me they were going to operate and cut out my colon and give me a bag that my shit would come out of, and I told them to let me die instead. And they went in there (surgery) and apparently they didn’t have to do it. And they told me I wouldn’t walk and I wouldn’t be able to control my body functions, but to their great surprise and my great relief—I was wondering who was going to change my diapers for the next 50 years—but it turns out that was an incorrect diagnosis and I’m already regaining control. I don’t know if I’m going to walk, but I’m definitely going to be able to control my body functions.

AVA: Was it your right leg that was damaged?

Bari: Yeah. My left leg still works, though my pelvis is broken in ten different places and my coccyx looks like oatmeal on the x-rays.

AVA: So the last time you saw a doctor, what did they say?

Bari: They say I will probably have to have a brace on my leg and I’ll probably be able to walk. I’ll have to be in traction, flat on my back in the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever been in my life for six more weeks. I have to be flat on my back for eight weeks—I cannot leave this bed, I cannot sit up, I cannot turn over. It’s real uncomfortable. I want to say, though, that this huge outpouring from people I know and people I don’t know has really been what has sustained me, and when I wanted to give up, people wouldn’t let me give up, and I don’t know how I can express my appreciation for that. There’s somebody with me 24-hours a day. If I wake up crying, there’s somebody to hold my hand, and I don’t even always know the person, but there’s always someone here, and I really appreciate it. I’m not strong enough to respond to cards and letters, but I’m reading them and I really appreciate them, and I hope they don’t get tired of writing them, because they’re the only thing that keeps my spirits high.

AVA: You know, of course, that the story has been in all the media across the country…

Bari: Some people will do anything to be famous…(laughs)

AVA: I know Darryl wanted to get on TV…(laughter)…that may account for the placement of the device…

Bari: No, Darryl, first of all, has some of the least mechanical skills of anyone I’ve ever known. I once tried to hire him to hang sheet rock and found him to be unemployable, because he didn’t know how to hammer. And, secondly, whatever else I know about Darryl—Darryl and I have been broken up as a romantic couple for several months now but I love Darryl and Darryl loves me, and there is no question in my mind that Darryl would never, ever do such a thing.

AVA: Yeah, I think we can eliminate Darryl as a suspect.

Bari: But I did appreciate Rob’s article about the [imaginary] argument that we had: “Oh, Darryl, you’re such a wimp, you put the bomb under my seat instead of yours”…(laughter) I thought that was great!

AVA: So, no suspicious persons…you can’t speculate on any of that?

Bari: No comment. You will not trick me into commenting.

AVA: See, that’s the problem when the lawyers move into a case, you know.

Bari: The problem for me, Bruce, is that I know that perfectly innocent people have gone to jail for 10 years, 20 years—for their lives—and I know that I’m perfectly innocent, and I don’t want to go to jail.

AVA: That’s what’s astounding about this case, because, at this late date, you two are still the only suspects.

Bari: I know. They’ve never even considered any­body else.

 AVA: You would think that at this point in our history, there would be some sophistication in these police agencies, but now they’ve dredged up the old “Patty Hearst” photo of you [“Judi Bari—AVA Poster Gal of the Week,” AVA, April 4, 1989]—the Patty Hearst takeoff—which, if they had any sort of historical reference, they would know immediately, at a glance, that’s what it was…

Bari: They’re totally lacking in a sense of humor. They cannot understand why someone who doesn’t know which end of an Uzi to fire would pose with one. The actual purpose of that pose, how we came to take that picture, was we were trying to think of the most outrageous cover we could for Darryl’s album, “They Sure Don’t Make Hippies Like They Used To.” That was an outtake, one that was not used. It was a joke. I’ve never fired an Uzi. I don’t know how to fire an Uzi. I don’t own an Uzi. I don’t own any fire arms. I don’t know how to use fire arms. I’ve never killed anything bigger than a potato bug.

AVA: So there’s no truth to the rumor that you’ve been on maneuvers with the “camo buddies” in Comptche? The “Camo buddies,” I love that phrase. That really describes them—retarded 50-year olds in paramilitary drills, getting ready for the summer. What can you say? Tactically, it looks very promising for the first demo in Samoa [where timber is exported]. At the grass roots level, I don’t know what the tactics are going to be—massive civil disobedience, or what?

Bari: It was supposed to be, but I’ve been out of it and things have changed. Back when I was involved in the organizing of this, the idea was that we would do massive civil disobedience as close as we could get. I think there’s a public beach across from the dock—I don’t know what recon has been done or what’s on. But I was dismayed to hear some people in Arcata say, “Let’s not do civil disobedience.” When people were killed in Mississippi, the organizers didn’t say, “Well, gee, let’s not register black people. Let’s just interview them instead.” You can’t back down to terrorism. You can’t back down to this kind of thing. We’re all in shock. Our community is in shock. We were all naive little kids, never thinking this could happen to us. When we talked about nonviolence training, we were worried about getting punched. It never occurred to us that some­one would use something as unspeakable as a bomb that would do the type of damage they’ve done to me. It never crossed my mind that that would happen. It really didn’t.

AVA: It hadn’t crossed mine. I was thinking it was more likely that we would occasionally be waylaid by groups of camo buddies…

Bari: Right. And that’s all I was worried about. I felt very safe in the city. I didn’t feel there was any danger, and I think I was real naive, because we know that we’re going against the biggest corpora\ions, the biggest greed-mongers…

AVA: In many ways they’re not only the biggest, but some of the worst, some of the most vicious, some of the most relentless concentrations of money in the world.

Bari: Right. And we know what their tactics have been against black people, against Indians, etc. And because we’ve grown up with this white, middle-class privilege, it never crossed our minds that they would use the same unspeakable tactics on us. But we have to grow up and to realize that’s no reason to stop, because the alternative is to let not just the arrests go, but to let the entire life support of the Earth go. If that’s the alternative, there is no alternative. We can’t back down no matter what they do.

AVA: How do you account for the fact that there’s only been one equivocating denunciation from Supervisor deVall about what happened to you. He said something like, “Gee, I don’t think they’d be crazy enough to carry a bomb.” Which, of course, leaves open the possibility that you were. But nothing from Bowsker [Congressman Bosco, State Senator Keene, Assemblyman Hauser], nothing from the County Supervisors—even from Liz Henry. And, of course, absolutely nothing from District Attorney Massini and those thugs in the D.A’s office or local law enforcement. I mean, not even the usual pro forma thing, about how we’re opposed to violence on all sides.

Bari: Pacific-Lumber did, though. P-L sent a very nice get-well message. And Bill Bailey and Art Har­wood…I was touched by that. But I really do think some of those locals are as shocked by this as we are. I think Bill Bailey was sincere. I’ve heard him denounced as an opportunist, but I don’t agree with that. Those who fail to condemn it—it puts them right in the camp with the murderers. I think it’s despicable.

AVA: It’s certainly a green light for the murderers.

Bari: They had no hesitation to condemn us. They had no hesitation to call us violent when we called for nonviolent civil disobedience. We called for mass, nonviolent civil disobedience. The loggers responded, at that famous supervisors’ meeting, “If you do that. we’ll beat you up; therefore, you’re vio­lent.” And the supervisors condemned us. They have spent much of their energy condemning us, and I think their failure to condemn the other side really shows which side they’re on. I don’t think they’re neutral. I don’t think they have any morality, and I don’t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.

AVA: Will you be here for the next six weeks?

Bari: This room, this bed. I cannot move from this bed. I cannot go out in the goddamn hall. There’s one danger: If they do arrest me, I’m supposed to go up to the jail ward, and that’s real dangerous for me, because there’s only one nurse on the jail ward, and I’m real sick, and one nurse for the whole ward is not enough to take care of me.

AVA: That’s upstairs in this hospital, on the eighth floor?

Bari: They actually took me there out of the critical care unit, and when the doctors came looking for me, I was gone and they were outraged. I was up there only a half hour, just long enough to make friends with my roommate.

AVA: You’re out of protective custody?

Bari: The hospital’s been very cooperative. Though I’m out of protective custody, they’ve allowed me to have a 24-hour guard—that Movement has been astounding. There’s not been one second that the shift has not been covered.

AVA: [To the on-shift guard] And your name is…?

Guard: Grace Nichols.

AVA: You’re doing this shift, Grace?

Bari: Some of them have been Earth First!ers. Some of them are college kids here for Redwood Summer, Sacramento Earth First! was my guard last night—you know, the new group that did the dock action in Sacramento. Some of them I know, and some of them I don’t know. In addition to the security of having people guarding me and having people there for me when I get too depressed, I’m getting to meet the movement. I’m finding out who these people are. It’s fascinating. They’re such a diverse group.

AVA: You don’t see any diminishing spirit for this summer’s activity?

Bari: No, I see it greatly increasing in spirit. I think [the bombing] had the exact opposite effect than intended. They don’t understand us. They’re looking for a leader, and they can’t find a leader. They tried to knock off Dave Foreman, and it didn’t work. I get my juice from these demonstrations, and it’s going to be real hard to not be there. But I think it’s going to be good for the movement to have it happen without me this summer, because we’ve had a problem of people being too dependent on me, that if I don’t organize something, it doesn’t happen. I’m really glad to see—I’ve known this all along—the community discovering that they don’t need me. No movement is dependent on one person, and if it is, it’s not a movement. The fact that it’s going to go on stronger and better without me—I think that’s good. Everyone contributes, but no one is essential.

AVA: I heard Supervisor Nelson Redding the other day on National Public Radio, of all places, and he said that everything that was happening in Mendocino County—Earth First!, Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney—was worse than the People’s Temple. [laughter]

Bari: That sounds like a Tim Stoen quote to me. Worse than People’s Temple? What exactly is he referring to that’s so horrible? I guess to him murdering black kids isn’t so horrible.

AVA: It’s going to be interesting to see how people like Redding and Butcher handle the national media this summer.

Bari: I think they’re going to be totally out of their league.

AVA: They’re already out of their league.

Bari: The whole reason we called this—and that’s one of the reasons we drew the analogy to Mississippi—just like they could get away with beating up black kids when no one but the locals were looking, they can get away with their bizarre behavior in Mendocino County when no one but Mendocino County is watching. But the rest of the world sees them for what they are—which is a bunch of small-town, small-minded, petty power mongers. There are very few people who think the right of a few people to make $7.00 an hour for a few more years is worth the extinction of a 10,000 year-old ecosystem. I’m one of the strongest advocates for the loggers and the millworkers. I’m certainly a stronger advocate for them than their own unions are, and I’m certainly a stronger advocate for them than their employers are. I think they’re victims. I love Grace’s song she just sang for me. It goes, “Come on now millworkers. It’s time to organize. What they’re doing to the old growth, they’re doing to our lives,”

AVA: About the camo buddies…

Bari: I do think the camo buddies are the equivalent of the white racists in Mississippi. They don’t really have much to be gained from the system. They’re being used by the system. But they are people who are not real bright who have bought into it and they’re getting their kicks and playing their games.

AVA: Historically they’re sort of like Pinkertons. They’ve always used goons against the labor movement.

Bari: Right. I think the threat of violence does come from people like that. We used to have a chant at the Concord Naval Weapons Station that we should say to the camo buddies: “You are not boys, those are not toys, this is not a game.” That’s why they are dangerous, because they are playing games. It’s a game to them, but it’s real life to us.

AVA: In Mendocino County, Jerry Philbrick can make a threat to take out 150 people, and there’s no official concern, there’s no official denunciation.

Bari: Well, Mendocino County, as we all know, is known as the largest outpatient ward in America and we who live there are completely used to this stuff. I really think that things are going to change. Everybody out of the County I’ve told the story to, for example, about selling the County Courthouse to the Japanese is absolutely astounded, and yet nobody blinks an eye in Mendocino County. These things happen every day up there. I think we’re going to bring a little reason to the area by having people come in from outside, who are not used to complete loonies running the government, the police, the schools, the hospitals, and the newspapers.

AVA: Watch it lady, when you talk about newspapers. But the Mississippi parallel was a stroke of genius, because Mendocino County is very similar to Mississippi in the early sixties. Local authority uses this violent fringe to do their dirty work.

Bari: That’s a real difference that we need to em­phasize between this nonviolent action and the Ne­vada Test Site, Diablo Canyon, and even Concord Naval Weapons Station: The only adversary there was the government or their agents, but here we have this lunatic fringe. That’s why the compari­son was made to Mississippi, because we have a whole different level we have to deal with. I have a lot of respect for most of the loggers and the workers and most of them know what’s going on, but there’s a certain element among them who are busy cutting themselves right out of the jobs and will defend to the death their right to do it. When it’s all over and it’s all gone, I don’t know if they’ll ever wake up. Maybe they think they’re going to go to Oregon, but it’s already happened in Oregon.

AVA: The wildest talk seems to be coming from gyppos themselves, and they’re essentially small businessmen, younger men, who’ve inherited business and equipment. They’ve never really been out in the world.

Bari: There’s too much inbreeding, too. It’s a rural area. The genetic pool is not large, and some of these families have lived here for five generations.

AVA: That’s right. Incest has not been a happy experience in Mendocino County…European royalty…Mendocino gyppos…So the tactics this summer: large public demos, like a loading dock, maybe a CDF office…

Bari: There will be several large demos that will be publicized in advance, but there will be continuous smaller demos that are happening everywhere. There are so many possibilities for things that could be done without disrupting operations, without causing a lot of danger, so we could leave the actual slowing down, the actual standing in front of the cutting to the hardcore.

AVA: People should be clear on that, because the camo buddies are the authority up there-including Bosco, Keene, Hauser, the utterly contemptible Don Nelson, the alleged union man—God, he’s disgraceful…

Bari: He really is. And his son [Crawdad Nelson] is going to be teaching seminars on how to talk to loggers at our base camp. He does a good workshop on that.

AVA: He’s a good guy. But what they’re saying is—especially their intellectual leadership, like Tom Loop…

Bari: [laughter]

AVA: That’s what we’re talking about, Judi. They say it’s an all-out physical attack on loggers and their equipment.

Bari: And, of course, it is not at all. We all know that these people are cutting themselves out of jobs. And they all know it, too. But I want to explain the attacks on the equipment, too. Louisiana-Pacific, for example, sets the price per thousand (board feet), and as the woods become more depleted, it takes more and more labor to get the thousand out. And, since they have no collective bargaining—these wonderful, rugged individualists don’t believe in such things—they have no say in what the price is that they’re offered. So the price per thousand has become so low the gyppos cannot make enough off the cut to maintain their own equipment. What’s happening is that wages have gone to a disgracefully low level—people are starting at $9.00 an hour in the woods. That is an embarrassment. This is the most dangerous job in the United States, according to the Labor Department. I’ve heard that undocumented Mexicans start even lower…

AVA: Yeah, Mexicans start at $5.00.

Bari: I’ve never seen that proven, but I have seen the $9.00 proven. I know that for sure. As the gyppos get squeezed by these corporations, getting the last few years out of it before they ditch them entirely, before these “loyal” idiots get ditched by their corporate masters…

AVA: They were already ditched once when L-P and G-P got rid of their woods crews.

Bari: Sure, but I’m talking about the gyppos now. I’m talking about who is threatening the gyppo jobs and equipment, and I’m saying that the corporations are threatening their jobs and equipment. They’re doing it by paying them so little per thousand that they can’t pay their employees a living wage, and they can’t afford to maintain their own equipment. That’s where the danger is coming from. It’s not coming from Earth First!

AVA: And the gyppos are going to be left competing with each other for private tracts.

Bari: This has been happening, and what is happening is that the smaller gyppos are being squeezed out, as the laws of capitalism play themselves out. The smaller companies have been increasingly squeezed out, and only the larger, more crass gyppos have survived.

AVA: Even they subdivide and are into real estate and all kinds of other ventures, so this business that they’re trying to preserve a noble history…This oldtimer in Navarro—he’s in his eighties nowhe started out when they were cutting trees by hand. He remembers the first chainsaws after World War II. They didn’t even have chainsaws until then. I don’t think a lot of people know that.

Bari: Philbrick is so proud of his grandfather cutting down trees “with no technology.”

AVA: Why doesn’t he do it that way, then? This old guy says, these guys with their pickup trucks and their big ugly dogs wouldn’t have lasted three minutes under the old conditions in the old days.

Bari: But the timber industry has a real brutal history, one of the most brutal of any industry. And the way that they busted the loggers’ attempts at self-organization—what you have to realize is that what you see now is the result of the military suppression of the loggers’ attempts to organize themselves against these really violent companies. These are the same companies we’re dealing with today, and we shouldn’t forget that today.

AVA: Philbrick alluded to a possible environmentalist-gyppo coalition to oppose certain corporate practices. Do you foresee anything like that?

Bari: I see more hope of coalitions with the work­ers than with the gyppos. I think there’s a difference between a gyppo employee and a gyppo owner. I would be willing to work in coalition with anybody against the corporations. Even Philbrick or any of them who sincerely wanted to form a coalition to oppose corporate practices. I would do that. But I wouldn’t compromise my principles to do so; I wouldn’t say that I will form this coalition instead of Redwood Summer. I would certainly do it in addi­tion to Redwood Summer.

AVA: if they haven’t opposed corporate practices by now, there’s little indication that they will anytime soon.

Bari: It’s a little late. I was upset when I read I was basically unconscious for two weeks and afterwards Karen Pickett gave me a press packet of all the clippings—and I didn’t read anything about the forest. I read about myself a lot, and I read about bombs and about loggers and this and that, but I didn’t read about the forest. And people who are will­ing to make compromises we shouldn’t be making, people are ready to back down, they should remember why we called this in the first place. They should to take a walk on Big River, or go to Navarro, or to Albion, Whale Gulch, Pudding Creek, and Sherwood Road. And if they don’t remember after that why we’re having Redwood Summer, we don’t need ‘em.

AVA: You’re aware that the base camps have already been set up, and Seeds of Peace are already up there…

Bari: Seeds of Peace are wonderful and give me hope for the future, because I’ve been a political activist for 20 years and for 20 years I’ve been the youngest generation, and it’s so nice to have a bunch of kids coming in who are so wise. I mean, they are 19-year old kids with this wisdom, this ability, and this spirit to fight back. It really gives me hope for the future of the movement that I wasn’t sure I had before. The other thing that’s so exciting about Redwood Summer is the passing of the torch to the next generation, just like the 40-year olds set us in motion 20 years ago when I was in the antiwar movement.

AVA: I think we should go over the misunderstanding—deliberate of course, in Mendocino County—that Earth First! is an aggressively violent, terrorist organization.

Bari: Earth First! is an aggressively prankster organization. Our sense of humor is what distinguishes us from virtually every other group I’ve ever been in.

AVA: So the literal-minded are going to have a very difficult time understanding…

Bari: Something they fail to understand about Earth First! is our style, our spirit, our lack of re­spect, and our sense of humor. And people with no sense of humor will never understand Earth First! In fact, one of my favorite Earth First! slogans is, “Some People Just Don’t Get It.”