The epic battle for California's legendary redwood forests came into the news again, specifically the penultimate cold case for all who call themselves green, especially we who live in or near Oakland. A court fight this week is shaping up over the FBI's attempts to destroy a car it has long held in its clutches. It belonged to International Workers of the World and Earth First member Judi Bari, and in it, under the passenger seat, a bomb went off years ago, shattering her hips and injuring her friend Darryl Cherney, as they were starting a trip to spearhead Redwood Summer, a campaign to garner support to restrict the rapacious logging taking place at the time.
In short order, the FBI arrested the broken and bleeding pair, charging them with planting the explosive themselves. After failing miserably to convict them, the Bureau appears to have never questioned anyone since. It was a situation tailor-made for speculation about the true culprits and the authorities' complicity therewith. And the Bureau is not helping matters in what looks to activists to be an attempt to melt down the evidence in a still-open case.
In a salute to the defenders of the wild, I give you two songs sung by Darryl Cherney himself: the Earth First Anthem, and Who Bombed Judi Bari.
In short order, the FBI arrested the broken and bleeding pair, charging them with planting the explosive themselves. After failing miserably to convict them, the Bureau appears to have never questioned anyone since. It was a situation tailor-made for speculation about the true culprits and the authorities' complicity therewith. And the Bureau is not helping matters in what looks to activists to be an attempt to melt down the evidence in a still-open case.
In a salute to the defenders of the wild, I give you two songs sung by Darryl Cherney himself: the Earth First Anthem, and Who Bombed Judi Bari.
