Free State Project's topics - tribe.net

Dreaming the NEW American Dream

2009-04-04T17:37:03Z

California poets Ava Bird & Rex Butters, and....

Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche - Karen Kwiatkowski of Virginia

Protests to stop immigration raids ... and more.
____________________

http://www.newamericandream.net

The New American Dream

What's New?

* Karen Kwiatkowski column
* Ava Bird poetry
* Rex Butters poetry
* Gary Mennie poetry

Columns:
Sherwood Ross — why not shut down a few prisons in the United States as well?
Mickey Z — Americans are cowards, too comfortable, will never-ever-not-in-one-million-years revolt-or-even-bother-to-stand-up — no matter what the rich folks do to them.
Lydia Sems — It's The American Dream that is the problem.

and more from Jack Saunders ...

Resistance:
* Planned civil disobedience in Minnesota to stop raids against immigrants
* Protests at Creech AFB against U.S. drone terroristic activity
*100 days of protest against Guantanamo to culminate

All this, Northern Exposure, The Big Lebowski, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights ... a certificate for free toast ... and more.

Join us.

The New American Dream
Dude.
... because ... Sister Mary Anne told us, "There are no wrong questions, if you don't know the answers."

... from the Dream Team

http://www.newamericandream.net

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Jailed Liberty Activists

2009-02-01T21:27:40Z

Hi. A lot of Liberty happenings and groups in New Hampshire where activists are confronting the system's victimless laws daily.

The latest ... Liberty activists in New Hampshire have started some websites for Liberty activist to keep informed and support jailed activists.
http://jailedactivist.info/
http://www.mail-to-jail.com/

If you know of any liberty activist or would like to support those struggling towards freedom more details, forums and links can be found at www.NHFree.com or listen to www.freetalklive.com

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Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

2008-03-06T15:15:35Z

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

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

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Porcupine Freedom Festival PorcFest 2008

2008-02-13T20:21:45Z

PorcFest 2008!
I’m spreading the word about this great liberty event presented by the Free State Project (FSP) www.freestateproject.org June 9th – 15th Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford, New Hampshire. Further details are online at www.PorcFest.com

PorcFest 2008 is to showcase New Hampshire and the FSP community through parties, tours, BBQs, hikes, informal discussions, concerts, shooting, trips, camping, and other fun activities that suit the needs of families, singles, and kids alike. The liberties enjoyed by New Hampshire citizens of shall-issue concealed-carry permits, preserving the constitutionally protected right of revolution, boasting no income or sales tax, their interactions with local and state legislators and 101 other great pro-liberty reasons are impressive. I am hoping you will make this one of your outings this summer.
PorcFest 2008 is an event you will remember. Have you missed events or Burns before that you wish you’d attended? Don’t let PorcFest 2008 and the FSP be another historical event missed!

If you believe in the “Bill of Rights”, support the Constitution, the 2nd amendment, quest for smaller government and are looking to achieve liberty in your lifetime, you definitely need to check this out. I had watched the Free State Project grow and its members’ activism. The quality and quantity of successful liberty activists I met, and the community they enjoy with The Free State Project and their legislators are amazing.

There’s a good and short video from PorcFest 2007 produced by Free Minds TV (one of two libertarian TV shows in NH….how many of these are there where you live ?) discussing the FSP and the festival at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nm8-2Plxt0 .

There's an FAQ page at http://www.freestateproject.org/festival/faq and I'd be glad to answer any questions or get you any information about the event or the FSP. Feel free to post as well to the PorcFest forum at http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=60.0

Friends that have made the move to New Hampshire now have their own TV and radio programs, documentaries, newspapers, homes and websites. Start your search with these sites for a glimpse of what the Free State Project and its participants are about and have accomplished in the first 4 years since New Hampshire was chosen as the Free State. I ask you to view some of the videos such as Rep. Dan Itse’s, who has instructed New Hampshire citizens on their Constitution http://www.nhliberty.org/nh_constitution_class and trains citizens how to give testimony to state committee on legislation http://youtube.com/watch?v=mN97RTEDX4A ( where other than New Hampshire can you find state representatives that will teach you your rights and how to challenge bills?).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xysgXCfJ0kQ - FTL Radio's Ian www.freetalklive.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8L0HehoOhM -Dale www.anarchyinyourhead.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykYVIUk-mqs - Russell/Kat Kanning www.nhfree.com
www.freestateblogs.net - Denis Goddard’s coverage of various NH politics and FSP activities.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=porcfest
http://www.webshots.com/search?query=porcfest&new=1&source=chromeheader

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

2007-11-07T04:30:13Z

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

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Michael Badnarik is teaching a class on the US Constitution May 12th

2007-05-01T06:18:30Z

The class is at the Veteran's Hall in Concord, CA, 9:00AM to 6:00PM.

The event flier is available here: http://www.constitutionpreservation.org/2007_flyers/070512_CA_Concord.pdf

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

state of jefferson?

2007-02-06T00:35:09Z

an interesting project historically in the works

http://tribes.tribe.net/thegreatstateofjefferson?_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Tribe%5B2c2fcc99-8920-42eb-8565-62682e7e86cf%5D

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

The First 1000 Pledge

2006-12-31T03:17:38Z

Time is running out! If you are planning to make the move by the end of 2008 then please sign the pledge:

http://www.pledgebank.com/First1000

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

America Freedom to Fascism

2006-11-13T01:28:11Z

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198&q=

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

state of lincoln

2006-10-25T04:34:15Z

with recent voter problems ala 2004 it has been planned...

http://tribes.tribe.net/thegreatstateoflincoln

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

On the Peter B. Collins Show (Oct 18th) talks about election fraud in Northern California (Southern Cascadia)

2006-10-19T11:34:57Z

On the Peter B. Collins Show (Oct 18th) talks about election fraud in Northern California (Southern Cascadia)

http://whiterosesociety.org/Collins.html

http://server4.whiterosesociety.org/content/collins/CollinsShow-(18-10-2006).mp3

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Welcome to the Republic of New Hampshire!

2006-09-18T17:40:55Z

We thus hereby request that the legislature of New Hampshire make the following resolution: That the State of New Hampshire is, and of right ought to be, a free and independent state; that she is absolved from all allegiance to the Federal Union, and that all political connection between us and the United States of America, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a free and independent state, we have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.

- From the text of our Declaration of Independence, written by Caleb Johnson, inspired by Thomas Jefferson

It is with a deep sense of regret, and a profound feeling of loss, that we must reluctantly recommend to the citizens of New Hampshire that our state declare its independence from the Federal Union. As concerned citizens, we do not take such a drastic recommendation lightly. This group has been created for the purpose of explaining the reasons which compel us to advise such a drastic step. It is hoped that you will consider the evidence in the same spirit of reflection with which it has been presented.

http://republicofnh.org/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/republicofnewhampshire/?yguid=193981468

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

Check out these demographics

2006-08-18T05:19:49Z

http://www.co.loving.tx.us/ips/cms

52 people in the entire county. I heard that they had three libertarians recently attempt a coup of sorts by going in and stirring up enough voters (plus allegations of fraud but you know how allegations of that sort are) to gain access to a county of more than 600 square miles. Two hundered men willing to take up residence in the county for a year so as to establish residence could probably do well in the elections.

posted in Free State Project - 6 replies

Free Talk Live Tribe

2006-08-05T14:51:24Z

I have stated a Free Talk Live tribe if any of you are fans of the show and would be interested in joining:

http://tribes.tribe.net/freetalklive

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

FSP News

2006-07-16T18:15:38Z

If you're not signed up as either a member or a friend, you may not be getting our monthly newsletter. Check out the latest:

http://freestateproject.org/news/fspnews/july2006

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

End-of-chapter essay question...

2006-07-04T01:04:43Z

What does the Declaration of Independence mean to YOU? Discuss.

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

Interview with Aaron Russo director of "Freedom to Fascism"

2006-06-18T10:42:33Z

Interview with Aaron Russo director of "Freedom to Fascism"

An interview by http://consciousmedianetwork.com of Aaron Russo about his new film, America: Freedom to Fascism. In this film Russo sets out to find the law that requires American citizens pay a direct income tax. This interview contains info about the fiat currency owned by private, for profit bank that we call "dollars". He explains how the Federal Reserve is neither 'Federal' nor has any reserves. He also gives a spot on critique of Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 . America: Freedom to Fascism is opening in USA . Also included on the radio.indymedia php page associated with this file will be a short excerpt from the inteview and the 14 min. trailer to the film.
http://fromfreedomtofascism.com
listen for excerpts of it in the daily rotation of radioActive sanDiego http://radioactiveradio.org
look for mp3 links to 16 min. trailer to film, and 4 minute audio clip of interview at the ".php" page on http://radioactiveradio.org
36 min.

http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/aluhlooyah_aaronrussointerviewcmn.mp3

http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/10251.php

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

PorcFest '06

2006-03-31T19:38:26Z

Anyone here headed to PorcFest in June? Last year was a blast. We had Badnarik, and a bunch of other great speakers, and roughly 400 attendees. It's a kick to be around so many like minded people at once.

http://freestateproject.org/news/festival/

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

Appropriate size of political states

2006-03-28T07:03:07Z

Finding the appropriate size of political states or other decision-making units, determining their optimal relationship to social capital and to infrastructural capital, is a major focus of political science. In management science there are studies of the ideal size of corporations, and some in anthropology and sociology study the ideal size of villages. Dennis Fox, a retired professor of legal studies and psychology, proposed an ideal village size of approximately 150 people in his 1985 paper about the relationship of anarchism to the tragedy of the commons.

http://www.dennisfox.net/papers/commons.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralisation

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Proportional Representation

2006-03-28T07:00:01Z

The current voting systems in the UK and the US dont do much for libertarians do they. here in the UK, the Green party (libertarian to the core) polled enough of the vote nationally to get several MPs, but actually got none, due to the vote being spread across the country.

lately it seems there is some support for PR here in the UK, tho nowhere near enough yet. Anything in the US?

ta

Rich
Xx

posted in Free State Project - 5 replies

the former Enronization of Argentina

2006-03-28T06:56:10Z

the former Enronization of Argentina

I am posting these articles on how Argentina had economically
collapsed several years ago, because I believe the Amerikan Empire
is very near this too especially in the next couple of weeks as the
US FED discontinues reporting M3 (March 23) and the Iranians switch
from petrodollars to petroeuros. Ofcourse a US attack on Iran could
add more chaos as corporatists use a nuke or "conventional"
smokescreen to rob more of the masses.

Just as a side note also remember Enron "owns" PGE.

I believe we, Cascadians, need to know how the Argentines pulled
themselves out after the economic collapse. But before we export
the autonomoist movement in Argentina we need to look at what happen
first.

Please circulate (mass spam) the following articles to others people
with URLs ofcourse:

Enron's plundering of Argentina

In 1990, at the height of the neoliberal privatization fever, upon
returning from his visit to George Bush, Sr., Argentine President
Menem received a letter from US Ambassador Terence Todman implying
that eight US companies would walk away from their investment plans
unless Argentina stopped favoring domestic corporations. The first
company on the list was Enron. As reported in the march 2000 edition
of Mother Jones, former Argentine President Carlos Menem, at that
time a golf partner and buddy of the Bushes, signed off on a $300
million deal for a US gas pipeline company in Argentina. The deal
involved a huge tariff and tax cut. Spearheaded by the opposition, a
congressional investigation ensued and a special prosecutor was
appointed to the case. Menem, exercising his supreme powers, fired
the investigator and that was the end of the matter.
A few years earlier, George W. Bush had lobbied heavily on Enronąs
behalf. Former Raul Alfonsinąs minister of public works, Rodolfo
Terragno, recalls G.W.ąs phone call, mentioning his relationship
with his recently-elected dad. Terragno informed him that Enron
wanted to get the gas company for 20% of itąs international
commercial value. The international media attacked him for refusing
to give in to Enronąs demands.
Although the Houston-based corporation ended up abandoning the
project when gas prices fell, an Enron subsidiary later bought into
the pipeline and now owns almost a third of it. Transportadora de
Gas del Sur (TGS), partially owned by Enron, delivers more than 60%
of the natural gas used in Argentina through the nation's largest
pipeline system (4,300 miles). In 1998, 48% of energy used in
Argentina came from natural gas, a fact that tends to explain the
enourmous pressure that this company exerted on the corrupted
Argentine establishment through itąs allies: two US presidents, the
corporate media and a US Ambassador.
Found at http://www.autonomista.org/enron.htm

Argentina and Enron -- Peas in a Pod
by Paul Krugman

LAST WEEK, the Web site SatireWire.com ran a mock news story: "Enron
Admits It's Really Argentina." It was pretty funny, though quite
unfair -- unfair, that is, to Argentina.
Yet, the satire was more on point than its authors realized. Not
long ago Argentina, like Enron, was a darling of the financial
community. And like Enron, Argentina was held up as a role model, to
a large extent by the same people -- Argentina's monetary system, in
particular, was lauded in the pages of Forbes and the Wall Street
Journal, and feted at libertarian think tanks.
Why did the same people tend to admire Enron and Argentina? Because
in their different ways, both the company and the country tried to
turn back the clock to 1913. Both were experiments testing the
libertarian credo: that the great expansion in government's role
between the two world wars was unwarranted. Both were supposed to
demonstrate that government activism is unnecessary, and that
radical laissez-faire works.
The Enron experiment was, in essence, about doing away with
regulation -- regulation of prices, regulation of financial trading.
Most of these regulations had their origin in fear that consumers,
workers and investors would be exploited by those whom Theodore
Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth."
Enron used its political clout to create what one of its own
executives called a "regulatory black hole" in which it could
operate freely.
What Enron's admirers believed was that experience would demonstrate
fears about unregulated markets to be unjustified. Unfortunately,
what disappeared into that black hole was not bureaucratic clutter
but billions of hard-earned dollars, including those of Enron's own
employees. Or maybe it wasn't a black hole, but rather a wormhole,
and those billions of dollars emerged in some other universe -- say,
overseas bank accounts. For it turns out that malefactors of great
wealth do exist, and some of them were running Enron.
If Enron was an experiment in doing away with regulatory activism,
Argentina was an experiment in doing away with monetary activism.
Argentina returned to a colonial-era monetary system, a "currency
board," which took government out of the loop. No more lurching from
crisis to crisis, no more disruptive government interventions:
Argentina would provide sound money, and leave the rest up to the
free market.
Though Argentina attracted the usual opportunists, I'm pretty sure
that both the creators of its monetary system and many of its
admirers sincerely believed that they were working in everyone's
interest. Alas, these particular good intentions paved the road to
hell.
In the last few weeks, the bitter irony of Argentina's situation has
become almost too much to bear. The country's monetary system was
introduced in the name of laissez-faire. Now, in its desperate
efforts to save that system from imminent collapse, the Argentine
government has imposed drastic restrictions on economic freedom.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think that
markets are evil, that the profit motive is always wrong. On the
contrary, I believe that markets are very good things indeed. But
the great economic lesson of the 20th century was that to work, a
market system needs a little help from the government: regulations
to prevent abuses, active monetary policy to fight recessions. The
twin debacles in Houston and Buenos Aires demonstrate that this
great lesson has not lost its relevance.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
Found at http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1212-06.htm

IV Online magazine : IV338 - March 2002
Argentina
Enron in Argentina
Andrew Pollack
Do a quick search of the Web on the terms Enron and Argentina and
you mostly get either references comparing the two, or a recent
satire in which Kenneth Lay claims immunity by claiming Enron IS
Argentina. You might even stumble on the Mother Jones article
detailing Dubya's lobbying of the Argentine government on behalf of
Enron when he was governor of Texas.

It turns out (not surprisingly given the extent of Enron's global
interests) that Enron is very deeply involved in Argentina. Its
holdings there are in Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), whose
website describes the company as "the leading gas transportation
company in Argentina, operating the most extensive gas pipeline
system in the country and in Latin America." Enron's own website
says "The company serves 4.3 million customers, 3.1 million of which
reside in the greater Buenos Aires area."
To understand the significance of these figures it's worth noting
that in 1998, 48% of energy use in Argentina came from natural gas
(as quoted in a report posted by the Brazilian Embassy in Washington
DC, which tracks such things because of the international pipelines
being laid across countries in the region.)
And here's one from MSN's 'Moneycentral' site: 'Don't cry for
Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), Argentina. The company delivers
more than 60% of natural gas used in Argentina through the nation's
largest pipeline system (4,300 miles). Formerly state-run, TGS holds
exclusive license (until 2027) to transport gas from southern and
western Argentine sources to distributors nearby and in the Buenos
Aires metro area. TGS's gas services include treatment, processing,
and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) marketing; the company plans to
export energy to neighbouring countries. It is also building a fibre-
optic network in Argentina. The firm is 70%-owned by Compańía de
Inversiones de Energía, which is jointly controlled by Perez Companc
and US energy giant Enron.'
That's right, Enron. TGS's own website spells this out in more
detail, where it says its controlling shareholder is Compańía de
Inversiones de Energía S.A. (CIESA), "which together with Pecom
Energía group and Enron Corp, hold approximately 70% of the
Company's common stock. The remaining 30% ownership in the Company
is currently held by local and foreign investors."
And who is CIESA? Again, from TGS: "CIESA is owned 50% by Pecom
Energía (whose controlling shareholder is the above-mentioned Perez
Companc) and 50% by subsidiaries of Enron. CIESA has the ability to
direct the management of the Company, to control the election of the
majority of the Board of Directors, to determine the dividend policy
and other policies of the Company and to determine the outcome of
any matter put to a vote of the shareholders of the Company.'
TGS arose through a privatisation process of the kind which Enron
has pushed around the globe. (See 'Enron: The Global Gospel of Gas',
www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/enron.html). 'We started
our operations in late 1992, as a result of the privatisation of Gas
del Estado S.E. ("GdE"), the former state-owned company.'
And TGS has a significant investment in telecommunications through
its Telcosur subsidiary, through which it is 'positioning ourselves
as an independent carrier of carriers and also offering services to
large companies within our area of influence.'
'Telcosur,' says TGS, 'was born at the end of 1998 in order to take
advantage of TGS's existing telecommunications assets and
infrastructure, as well as the upcoming deregulation of the
telecommunications market, and the experience of power companies
from other countries that were successful in the telecommunications
business.' The 'experienced' power companies, of course, means
Enron. And their success in that business was, as the Wall Street
Journal recently documented, a bust - and not just because of fraud,
but because of the glut in fibre-optic capacity (that is, a mismatch
in supply and demand which tends under capitalism to lead to
precisely the kind of fraud Enron specialized in.)
But despite Enron's failures in the telecom field elsewhere,
Telcosur is following its 'experience' in avoiding direct sales in
favour of trading access to commodities, services, and financial
instruments: 'An important difference in connection with other
telecommunication operators is its independence, since it serves the
wholesaling market and therefore does not compete with its customers
in retail operations: switching, frame-relay, telephone services,
among others.' It provides 'value added services; in other words,
[it is] a carrier of telephone carriers and of large corporate
users.'
Telcosur is also 'installing a high-capacity fibre optic network
that will link Buenos Aires, Bahía Blanca and Neuquén, the most
active routes in its service area.'
Enron is currently in the process of divesting various subsidiaries
around the globe to raise cash, and at least one potential buyer for
its Argentina subsidiary has been mentioned. That buyer is Sempra
Energy International, which owns a 43-percent interest in two
Argentine natural gas utility holding companies, Sodigas Pampeana,
S.A., and Sodigas Sur, S.A., and which 'serve 1.3 million customers
in central and southern Argentina, delivering approximately one-
third of all the natural gas distributed in the country.' Sempra, a
big operator in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America, also owns
Southern California Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric, and has just
bought Enron's London energy trading operations. It's not clear if
the deal will go through.
In the meantime workers in Argentina are demanding the
renationalisation of firms in a variety of sectors. On February 5th
Argentines marched on the offices of Repsol to demand jobs. Repsol,
according to the Partido Obrero, 'is the 7th largest [oil company]
in the world, which has reaped fabulous profits from privatisation,
and which is responsible for widespread layoffs, pay cuts and
refinery closings.'
If the mobilizations in Argentina continue to deepen we can expect
that calls for renationalisation - this time under workers control -
of the entire energy sector will deepen. And if Enron's Argentine
subsidiaries are targeted that might even encourage some in the US
to think about similar solutions here.

Andrew Pollack is a computer instructor in Brooklyn and author
of "Information Technology and Socialist Self-Management," in
Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the
Global Communication Revolution, edited by Robert W. McChesney,
Ellen Meiksins Wood, and John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review, 1997.
Found at http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/article.php3?
id_article=494

Don't Cry for Bush, Argentina
NEWS: George W. may not recall the names of world leaders, but when
it comes to foreign affairs, he knows the value of his own family's
name.
By Louis Dubose and Carmen Coiro
March/April 2000 Issue

Texans watched with interest last winter as Governor George W. Bush
was home-schooled on international affairs by former Secretary of
State George Shultz and other veterans of his father's foreign-
policy team. Even Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden,
was brought in for a tutorial at the governor's mansion, in the hope
that his recent U.N. experience in the Balkans could help Bush
understand that Kosovars are not "Kosavarians" and that Greeks are
not "Grecians."
But no one had to prepare a prompt card to remind him who stepped
down as president of Argentina in December. Shortly before Bush
announced his own campaign for president, he had received a visit
from Carlos Saul Menem, the right-wing leader of Argentina for the
past decade. The two men retired to an Austin country club, where
they were joined by Bush's father. Governor Bush had the flu, so he
contented himself with riding along as the former president and
Menem played a round of golf.
The capitol press corps trailed along, dutifully recording the
governor's cordial relationship with a visiting head of state.
Unknown to the assembled reporters, however, was the story of how
Bush and his family became immersed in Argentine politics. The
little-known tale begins with George W. making a phone call to
secure a $300-million deal for a U.S. pipeline company -- a deal
that provoked a political firestorm in Argentina, drawing scrutiny
from legislators and a special prosecutor. The episode marked one of
George W.'s first ventures into foreign affairs, demonstrating the
fundamental rule by which the Texas governor and his family conduct
business: Always know that the Bush name is a marketable commodity.
Bush first made his presence felt in Argentina in 1988, shortly
after his father was elected president. At the time, the junior
Bush's political career was just beginning -- and the political
career of Raúl Alfonsín, who was approaching the end of his term as
president of Argentina, was ending. Alfonsín had returned his
country to civilian rule, prosecuted those responsible for human
rights abuses during Argentina's rule by a military junta, and
struggled to manage an economy that seemed to defy management.
Determined to complete one major private-sector industrial program,
he pushed for the development of a "gasoducto" that would connect
Argentine gas fields with domestic and foreign markets. And he
appointed his minister of public works, Rodolfo Terragno, to oversee
the pipeline project.
Unlike Bush, Terragno achieved political prominence the old-
fashioned way: through a life dedicated to public service. A noted
journalist and public official, he was forced into exile for 10
years after the military seized power in Argentina in 1976. Only
after Alfonsín restored civilian rule did Terragno return to his
homeland, where he went on to serve as minister of public works, a
member of congress, and most recently as cabinet chief to the newly
elected president, Fernando de la Rua.
In 1988, Terragno was considering two proposals for the $300-million
pipeline, one from an Italian firm called Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi
and the other from Pérez Companc, an Argentine company working in
partnership with Dow Chemical. After a year of consideration, the
minister was close to making a decision when Enron, the largest
pipeline company in the United States, suddenly entered the bidding.
At the time, the Houston-based Enron had no experience in Argentina.
It had formed a business relationship with Westfield, a small
Argentine firm, but Westfield wasn't much of a player either. El
Boletín Oficial -- the Argentine equivalent of the Federal Register -
- reported that Westfield's only asset in 1988 was $20, its
corporate filing fee. Westfield was a prestanombre, literally
a "borrowed name" used to provide a domestic front for a foreign
firm.
Terragno was concerned that a newly formed corporation with no
resources was attempting to land a contract that companies with
proven track records had been working on for a year. "I had a lot of
reservations about Enron because the company wasn't well established
in Argentina," Terragno told Mother Jones, providing details of the
episode for the first time.
The minister recalls that Enron sent him "a one-page outline"
proposing a price Terragno now describes as "laughable." Enron
wanted to pay "something like 20 percent of the international market
price," he says. "It all seemed so inadequate. Enron asked the
country of Argentina to practically give them the gas."
Terragno was unenthusiastic about the pipeline bid, but Enron
initiated a full-scale campaign to pressure him. Pro-business
newspapers attacked the minister for blocking the proposal, and
Terragno recalls that Ted Gildred, the U.S. ambassador to
Argentina, "called me and visited me constantly" to push the deal.
Terragno wasn't concerned about the ambassador's lobbying -- that
was politics as usual. "It was good that he was representing the
interest of his country's businesses," he says. But Terragno found
that some of the politics surrounding Enron's campaign were anything
but usual.
A few weeks after the U.S. presidential election in 1988, Terragno
received a phone call from a failed Texas oilman named George W.
Bush, who happened to be the son of the president-elect. "He told me
he had recently returned from a campaign tour with his father," the
Argentine minister recalls. The purpose of the call was clear: to
push Terragno to accept the bid from Enron.
"He was taking a moment to call me because he knew that I was
dealing with this," says Terragno, adding that Bush told him that
he "viewed with some concern the slow pace of the Enron project."
According to Terragno, the president-elect's son noted that a deal
with Enron "would be very favorable for Argentina and its relations
with the United States."
When a brief report on the attempt to influence the Argentine deal
appeared in The Nation and the Texas Observer years later, the Bush
team reacted angrily. His staff produced a copy of his day planner
to show that Bush never placed the phone call, and a top-level
adviser personally called reporters to dismiss the story as a
fantasy by "some guy in Argentina." Bush's staff continues to deny
his involvement, and no other media outlet ever reported on the
episode, despite the high-ranking source.
More than a decade later, Terragno still recalls details of the
phone call clearly -- as well as his outrage. "It looked bad and it
surprised me," he says. "There was this political endorsement,
apparently from the White House. I don't know if George Bush the
father was aware of it, or if it was only a business contact by his
son, who hoped that his family name would have some influence."
George W. wasn't the only Bush plying the family name in Argentina.
His brother Neil had tried to funnel $900,000 in loans from
Silverado Savings and Loan, where he served as a director, into a
failed attempt to drill for oil in Argentina. The S&L eventually
collapsed, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion to bail out, and
federal regulators banned Neil from certain banking activities.
But Terragno was unimpressed by the family connections. He told
George W. the pipeline concession would be awarded according to
Argentine law. It hardly mattered -- Argentine law was about to
change. Time had run out for Raúl Alfonsín. His party lost the
election, and he left office four months early to make way for his
successor, Carlos Menem.
Enron, for its part, couldn't have appointed an Argentine president
more favorable to its interests. A right-wing follower of Juan
Peron, Menem was eager to open his country to American enterprise --
and his own lavish spending. He took to traveling with a huge
entourage aboard Tango-01, his $66- million presidential jet. The
Bushes took an immediate liking to him. The day after the 1989
election, Neil Bush arrived in Buenos Aires for a tennis match with
the president-elect. The following year, President Bush made the
first of eight trips to see Menem, becoming the first U.S. chief
executive since Eisenhower to visit Argentina.
Several days after the president's trip in 1990, Bush's ambassador
to Argentina, Terence Todman, wrote a stern letter to Menem's
minister of the economy to follow up on issues that Bush
had "intended to address, but failed to do so for lack of time."
Todman went on to imply that eight U.S. companies would walk away
from their investment plans unless Argentina stopped favoring
domestic corporations. The first company on the list was Enron,
which the ambassador described as being "poised to invest $250
million" -- as soon as the Argentine government met its demands for
tax breaks. Todman closed his letter by warning that the Enron
decision was "extremely urgent," as the gas company would make a
final decision on its investment in less than a month.
Todman prevailed: Menem agreed to the company's terms, signing a
presidential decree that included Enron in a national program
freeing it from tariffs and valued-added taxes.
Reports of the Enron deal outraged Argentines, who had supported
Alfonsín's struggle to create a democracy out of what remained after
10 years of military dictatorship. Lawmakers demanded a
congressional inquiry, and a special prosecutor launched an
investigation. Menem dealt with the scandal in a forthright manner:
Since his own justice department was looking into the tax giveaway,
he simply fired the investigator.
Enron ultimately abandoned the project when gas prices fell, but an
Enron subsidiary later bought into the pipeline and now owns almost
a third of the gasoducto. Among the subsidiary's board members is
Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to former President
George Bush.
George W. has certainly benefited from his association with Enron.
Kenneth Lay, the company's chief executive, has personally
contributed $100,000 to Bush's two gubernatorial campaigns. When
Bush announced in 1999 that he was running for president, executives
and political action committees connected to Enron contributed
$89,650 to his campaign in the first three months. Lay signed on as
a "Bush Pioneer," pledging to raise $100,000.
The involvement of George W. and Neil in Argentina has become
something of an m.o. for the Bush brothers in foreign affairs. The
sons of the former president have certainly not been shy about using
their family name to enrich themselves and their friends. Jeb sold
$74 million worth of water pumps to the Nigerian government in 1988.
Marvin tried to sell electronic fences to the defense ministry of
Kuwait two years after the Gulf War, while Neil sought contracts to
provide oil-field antipollution equipment. And George W. lent his
name to tiny Harken Energy to help secure a huge offshore drilling
contract in Bahrain (see "Slick W.," page 48).
Undoubtedly, the family name will continue to open doors
internationally if George W. is elected. Last November, an airplane
with Houston registry numbers landed in Buenos Aires; on board was
former President Bush, who had arrived to spend the night with his
friend, President Menem, 10 days before the end of Menem's final
term. The two men attended a dinner at the home of Argentine banker
José Rohm, where they were joined by the vice president of Chase
Manhattan Bank, the director of Credit Suisse First Boston, the
president-elect of Argentina and the former president of Uruguay.
What was the purpose of President Bush's visit? "Fishing," says
Michael Dannenhauer, a Bush spokesman. But when the Buenos Aires
daily, Pagina 12, asked several of the dinner guests why the
president was in town, they smiled and quietly replied, "Business."
Bush's "real interest," they added, was to learn how the new
government would deal with CEI, an Argentine media company whose
former chief had fled the country under investigation for fraud. One
of CEI's principal investors, the paper noted, is Tom Hicks, "one of
the funders of the presidential campaign of Bush's son, George, the
governor of Texas."
Found at
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/03/argentina.html

USA: Don't Cry for Enron, Argentina

by Paul Krugman, San Francisco Chronicle
December 12th, 2001

Last week, the Web site SatireWire.com ran a mock news story: "Enron
Admits It's Really Argentina." It was pretty funny, though quite
unfair -- unfair, that is, to Argentina.
Yet, the satire was more on point than its authors realized. Not
long ago Argentina, like Enron, was a darling of the financial
community. And like Enron, Argentina was held up as a role model, to
a large extent by the same people -- Argentina's monetary system, in
particular, was lauded in the pages of Forbes and the Wall Street
Journal, and feted at libertarian think tanks.
Why did the same people tend to admire Enron and Argentina? Because
in their different ways, both the company and the country tried to
turn back the clock to 1913. Both were experiments testing the
libertarian credo: that the great expansion in government's role
between the two world wars was unwarranted. Both were supposed to
demonstrate that government activism is unnecessary, and that
radical laissez-faire works.
The Enron experiment was, in essence, about doing away with
regulation -- regulation of prices, regulation of financial trading.
Most of these regulations had their origin in fear that consumers,
workers and investors would be exploited by those whom Theodore
Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth."
Enron used its political clout to create what one of its own
executives called a "regulatory black hole" in which it could
operate freely.
What Enron's admirers believed was that experience would demonstrate
fears about unregulated markets to be unjustified. Unfortunately,
what disappeared into that black hole was not bureaucratic clutter
but billions of hard-earned dollars, including those of Enron's own
employees. Or maybe it wasn't a black hole, but rather a wormhole,
and those billions of dollars emerged in some other universe -- say,
overseas bank accounts. For it turns out that malefactors of great
wealth do exist, and some of them were running Enron.
If Enron was an experiment in doing away with regulatory activism,
Argentina was an experiment in doing away with monetary activism.
Argentina returned to a colonial-era monetary system, a "currency
board," which took government out of the loop. No more lurching from
crisis to crisis, no more disruptive government interventions:
Argentina would provide sound money, and leave the rest up to the
free market.
Though Argentina attracted the usual opportunists, I'm pretty sure
that both the creators of its monetary system and many of its
admirers sincerely believed that they were working in everyone's
interest. Alas, these particular good intentions paved the road to
hell.
In the last few weeks, the bitter irony of Argentina's situation has
become almost too much to bear. The country's monetary system was
introduced in the name of laissez-faire. Now, in its desperate
efforts to save that system from imminent collapse, the Argentine
government has imposed drastic restrictions on economic freedom.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think that
markets are evil, that the profit motive is always wrong. On the
contrary, I believe that markets are very good things indeed. But
the great economic lesson of the 20th century was that to work, a
market system needs a little help from the government: regulations
to prevent abuses, active monetary policy to fight recessions. The
twin debacles in Houston and Buenos Aires demonstrate that this
great lesson has not lost its relevance.

FAIR USE NOTICE. This document may contain copyrighted materialwhose
use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner.CorpWatch is making this article available in our efforts to
advance the understanding of corporate accountability, human rights,
labor rights, social and environmental justice issues. We believe
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.
Found at http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1015

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

Greens and Libertarians can live in Harmony

2006-03-28T06:54:27Z

Greens and Libertarians: The yin and yang of our political future
by Dan Sullivan 1992

Over the past three decades, people have become dissatisfied with both major parties, and two new minor parties are showing promise of growth and success. They are the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. These are not the only new parties, but they are the only ones that promise to attract people from across the political spectrum. Most other small parties are either clearly to the left of the Democrats or to the right of the Republicans. Such parties would have a place in a system that accommodates multiple parties, but are doomed to failure in a two-party system...

(full article @)
http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sullivan.dan/greenlibertarians.html

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

The First 1k

2006-03-25T22:46:48Z

For those who aren't waiting around for 20k...

http://www.pledgebank.com/First1000

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

We'll break 7000 this week!

2006-02-20T02:48:03Z

We're getting there!

http://freestateproject.org/about/membership.php

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

SF Porcupines: Has Prop H accelerated your plans?

2006-02-04T00:14:10Z

Anyone here from SF who might be moving due (in part) to the new gun ban? Please contact me - we've got some media interest!

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

New Moderator Needed

2006-02-03T01:52:59Z

I vote 4 Naytch - he has a lot of passion for this project

posted in Free State Project - 3 replies

FSP job locator/site?

2005-12-01T21:26:56Z

I just got laid off in the SF area and am a libertarian that's followed the FSP for a few years now. I gave the idea of moving to NH a few minutes thought,, but all of my business contacts are here or in Tampa, FL. If I were to consider a move I would need to find work there first, and it seems a lot of people wanting to move for the FSP are in the same boat. Has anyone of us tech-savvy types created a job search and networking resource of any type yet? I think I saw a listing of companies that are in NH on the FSP site so that's a start...

posted in Free State Project - 3 replies

New Hampshire's next-door neighbor is getting nervous...

2005-10-24T17:30:26Z

http://peakoilanarchy.blogspot.com/2005/10/jumping-from-sinking-ship-of-empire.html

Hmmm, perhaps my move from VT to NH was a wee bit hasty?

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

I found this very heartwarming...

2005-10-18T13:43:48Z

...even starting beaming with Granite State pride. (And me originally a Vermonter...)

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle341-20051016-05.html

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Another porcupine essay worth reading...

2005-10-14T20:36:17Z

http://www.reasontofreedom.com/Free_State_Project_Porcupine_Festival.html

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Essay by Tim Condon

2005-10-11T18:08:38Z

Listen, Libertarian!

http://www.sierratimes.com/05/10/09/24_94_97_221_77909.htm

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

NH picks up another libertarian resident

2005-08-25T21:40:03Z

Okay, officially moving to Lebanon, NH this weekend. See you folks there!

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

Need Volunteers to promote FSP at Van's Warped Tour

2005-07-22T19:07:46Z

Any members or friends of the FSP wanting to help the project and catch part of the show for free? We need help at these gigs:

7/26 - Buffalo, NY
8/1 - Pittsburgh, PA
8/15 - Northhampton, MA

We may be at some of the other remaining shows as well. Check out the list of dates here: http://www.warpedtour.com/dates.html

Anyone who might be interested, please message me with your email address, and I will put you in touch with our organizer.

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Talk about payback...

2005-07-04T15:23:34Z

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

Man, where do I kick in a donation?

posted in Free State Project - 14 replies

US Economic Freedom Index

2005-07-01T06:06:17Z

Thanks to our friends in the Pacific Research Institute we now have a metric to rate our efforts.

http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/sab/entrep/2004/econ_freedom/00_summary.html#table1

Let us hope that we are in time to reverse the slide.
NH dropped from #6 in 1999 to #7 in 2004.
Lets hope to see NH in the Top 5 in 2009!!!!

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Civil Disobedience by NHFree.com

2005-06-14T18:27:39Z

For anyone out of the loop, the NHFree folks are making quite a stir lately. Russell Kanning plans to travel by air without showing ID or submitting to a body cavity search.

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050605/NEWS02/106050006/-1/news

posted in Free State Project - 3 replies

VT attempts to affirm state's rights

2005-03-09T14:15:07Z

Will Vermont be allowed to recall their National Guards from Iraq? Interesting discussion about the possibilities.

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/000835.html

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

New to Group

2005-02-24T06:32:37Z

My husband and I recently joined the FSP, hope to chat with the group soon.
Take care,
Jenn

posted in Free State Project - 1 reply

Note from Tribe.net: please assign a moderator

2004-12-06T19:46:03Z

Hey there, "Free State Project" members--

This Tribe doesn't have a moderator, but as a matter of policy, Tribe.net likes all groups to have a leader.
Could you collectively choose someone to moderate your Tribe?

When you've reached consensus, have the new moderator send a note to help@tribe.net, letting us know that you've selected a new leader.

Thanks,
-- TOU (Terms of Use) Guy

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Who's coming with me....

2004-10-11T21:30:54Z

ohh wait.. I'm already in NH. so who's actually gonna move here?

I'm curious being that I'd like to see some change come to this state. I'm very much in support of the idea... so who's coming?

posted in Free State Project - 9 replies

another way to reduce local government control and media

2004-02-16T12:20:14Z

Free Radio / Pirate Radio Community

As a way of diluting current television and radio poroganda controlfor the government, would think that pirate radio might help to reduce government control and media conglomeration.

Please checkout "Free Radio / Pirate Radio Community" tribe if you think so... Theres work to be done, and many many things to burn.

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Free State of San Francisco

2003-12-24T15:45:34Z

San Francisco Bay Area folks interested in secession may find this resource helpful: http://www.freestateofsf.org/

Peace,

Will

posted in Free State Project - 4 replies

sorry for the poor editing

2003-12-06T02:30:51Z

1. The group has a common character and a common culture.... can I say hippie
2. ...people growing up among members of the group will acquire the group culture, will be marked by its character... ever meet a girl named rain?
3. Membership of the group is, in part, a matter of mutual recognition..... it might just be the smell but take me about 20 seconds to pick up a fellow free spirit
4. ...groups membership of which is one of the primary clues for people generally in interpreting the conduct of others... what is that other person standing in the showdows in the middle of a frezing night doing smoking somthing outside ? oh, same as me. -
5. Membership is a matter of belonging, not of achievement.... this one is just too obvious, if there is one group not marked by achievment it would be the potheads.
6. The groups concerned are not small face-to-face groups, members of which are generally known to all other members. They are anonymous groups where where mutual recognition is secured by the possession of general characteristics.... "stash" nag chanka - dredlocks - the list can go on
Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz (1990) National self-determination. Journal of Philosophy LXXXVII, 9, 439-46, p.443-447.

Not only does the smoking culture in california make up a unconected deversifeid group. It is a group that is suffering some of the worst oppresion the right wing government can deal out. Along with unconstatuinal drug screening to provent employment, they are locked up for non violnet crimes. Crimes that they defy on basic principles of moraltiy. Some feel that they have to hide and fear jail, theft of thier personal property, and all from our federal govenrment. Who fails to respect the wishes of what should be a self governing state. The people have spoken the government has not listend.

The industrail hemp prospects could reshape our economy help mantain our farms and the medical posibilities could complety restructure our health care.

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies

Where to go for more information

2003-10-06T02:15:46Z

For people who are not aware of the FSP online, you should check out their website:

http://www.freestateproject.org

Reason
reason@exratio.com
http://www.exratio.com

posted in Free State Project - 0 replies