-Caveat Lector- ----Original Message Follows---- From: *STRIDER* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: The Transformation of a Butterfly Part I Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 22:54:55 -0500 (CDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 11:45:29 EDT Subject: The Transformation of a Butterfly Part I >From The Konformist ( http://www.konformist.com ) The Transformation of a Butterfly Robert Sterling ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) "I gave my word to this tree, the forest and to all the people that my feet would not touch the ground until I had done everything in my power to make the world aware of this problem and to stop the destruction." On December 10, 1997, a 23 year-old woman named Julia Hill climbs to a six by eight foot platform on a redwood in Humboldt County, California. The redwood - known both as "The Stafford Giant," for being the largest remaining tree near the Northern California town, and "Luna," in honor of being discovered on a full moon - was found blue-marked to be chainsawed in the fall by activists of the environmental group Earth First! To save the 1,000 year-old Luna, a nonstop tree sit-in began, one in which Julia Hill is merely going to be another member of. Luna is over 200 feet tall, but the platform that Julia climbs to is 180 feet above ground, the same number which represents in degrees a complete reversal in direction. This isn't the only interesting symbolism here: as a child, Julia chose the nickname "Butterfly," a name which implies metamorphosis. On this day, John Elway is labeled a loser who chokes in the Super Bowl, and the 61 homers of Roger Maris is an almost unthinkable record to break. "Titanic" is getting good word of mouth, but there are wide expectations it will lose money, since it will have to earn nearly impossible box-office receipts to merely break even. Few people have ever heard of Monica Lewinsky, Matt Drudge or Linda Tripp, not to mention Sammy Sosa, Britney Spears or South Park. ***** One thing hasn't changed in the 20-plus months since Julia Hill (now 25) climbed that platform: Julia's feet have yet to return to the ground, even through two hot summers and two cold winters (one plagued by the El Nino storm.) With her determination to remain on the Luna platform, Julia has transformed into the most lovely of butterflies for a movement, and while the direction of the battle against Pacific Lumber's destructive logging practices certainly hasn't turned 180 degrees, Julia has become a potent symbol which frightens executives for the timber giant. Most notable of the executives is Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz, who does the best impression possible of Montgomery Burns (the villainous nuclear power plant owner in The Simpsons.) Having evaded deserved imprisonment for masterminding the fifth largest S&L failure of the Reagan-Bush era for an astounding $1.6 billion, Maxxam used money funneled from the bank swindle to engineer a hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber. From the moment Maxxam took over PL, the company has engaged in rabid clearcutting, tripling the rate of logging on the world's largest privately-held ancient redwood forests. The purpose of these destructive (and often illegal) logging practices appears to be extorting a sweetheart deal from the government for the land, a deal which they may receive through the Pacific Lumber Habitat Conservation Plan, which would pay Maxxam and Hurwitz $480 million for 9,500 acres, while letting them still control 200,000 acres of forests. The plan outrages most environmental activists, who have fought the giveaway in the courts. The best plan to save Headwaters and other forests, they argue, is to jail Hurwitz for his crimes and trade the land for his massive debts, not to reward him for his misdeeds. While such issues certainly do disturb Julia, she chooses not to focus on such long-term battles. With an almost Buddhistic simplicity, she instead fights one issue at a time, in her own words, "Day by day, prayer by prayer." To her, sitting in Luna is like a domino: save it, and other victories will soon follow from the aftershocks. Her battle plan has already worked to an extent few (including herself) would have ever imagined possible. As Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart put it, "Julia is a lightning rod 180 feet atop a giant redwood. She says, 'No more old-growth redwoods should be cut - not on my watch.' She's the Joan of Arc of the redwoods." Joan of Arc she is, along with a Rosa Parks, who kick-started the civil rights movements for refusing to leave her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. She is also the Cal Ripken of tree-sitters, having an ironwoman grit that has had obliterated all previous tree-sit records (before her, the longest is believed to have been no more than 3 months.) And she insists she will continue to be St. Joan, Rosa and Cal combined, until the Luna tree (and the grove it is part of) is saved, and she brings worldwide attention to the international destruction that is taking place. Perhaps the most telling fact of her success is that the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, which previously has shown little moral qualms in using vicious methods to deal with anti-logging demonstrators (including swabbing non-violent protesters eyes with pepper spray) has chosen to let her remain in the tree. While good judgement isn't a hallmark of Humboldt law enforcement, for once they wisely understood to force her down and jail her would create a martyr and an international outrage. Instead, they have let Julia sit, hoping that eventually she would crack. Don't bet against her: she has been through the worst. Besides El Nino and its winds rivaling a Randy Johnson fastball in speed, she has been harassed by Pacific Lumber, buzzing her tree with helicopters and disrupting her sleep with blaring air horns and lights. Julia has escaped it thriving rather than beaten, ready for more abuse. ***** When Julia first climbed into Luna, she certainly wasn't planning to continue as long as she has. "I was just trying to help the sit-in. Frankly, tree sitting just didn't seem like my thing." She thinks for a moment, then adds an ironic chuckle, as she speaks via cell phone. Her involvement in the tree sit-in was to last between three weeks and a month. "Somewhere in that time, I fell in love with this tree, and realized I had found my calling." "In time, I realized this could raise awareness that there are interlocking issues here. I wanted to raise consciousness on the issues of protection and destruction. To protect the forests and the trees, a spotlight has to be brought to the many factors involved, like the Home Depot connection to old-growth forest destruction. 95-97% of all old-growth forests in this country are gone, wiped out, and there are huge commercial interests promoting this." A spotlight she slowly became, and admits to not being naive about becoming one. "I love Abbie Hoffman, and one thing he always stressed was that people need a hook. Quite simply, the mainstream media wasn't interested in the subject of forest destruction. They weren't interested in the fact that seven families' homes were destroyed by mudslides caused by Pacific Lumber's clearcutting. These just weren't sexy issues." At first, the media even ignored her story, but that didn't seem to bother her. "I try to focus on what is ahead of me, and my immediate goal was to become a tree as much as I could." Soon, the establishment press did realize the sexiness of the issue, and the fact that Julia is appealingly photogenic certainly was a great selling point. The big break came when the L.A. Times stumbled onto her story, and the transformation from personal journey to social campaign began. Sue Carpenter wrote a profile piece on her for the Times Lifestyles section. "It was for a column about 'rad women'," she says with a laugh. "The focus was on me, and about me as a personality. The irony is what motivated the profile. After breaking the tree sit record, surviving El Nino, being attacked by a helicopter and harassed by Pacific Lumber security, what finally got their attention was that I had my birthday. I think that really shows the superficiality of our media." Julia feels some discomfort at the focus on her: in fact, there has been predictable grumbling by a few activists that her publicity is detrimental to the forest protection movement. Still, she and most fellow activists realize the necessity of it to draw attention to their cause, and she is satisfied her tree sit has been more than beneficial. "What does bother me is when the questions from reporters dwell on issues about what I eat, or how I go to the bathroom. I think that trivializes what is at stake, turns the issue of ancient forest destruction into another piece of brain candy." (For those who must ask, Julia uses an old margarine tub and bucket for a toilet, swabs herself down for hygiene, uses candles for lights, and a one-burner propane stove to cook vegan meals. She's an avid tea drinker and supposedly cooks a mean potato-squash stew.) "I think the more important questions is why I am up here, and what can others do about it." ***** The odyssey of Julia Hill to where she is now is a quarter-century adventure, but the big turning point to her current lifestyle began abruptly in August 1996. "I got in a terrible car accident," she explains. "I'm blessed to be alive, really. My steering wheel smacked me hard in the forehead. It almost affected the way I function in life, permanently. It took me ten months to recover. And during that time, I realized what this world celebrates is so sad, so false, so fake. I didn't want to be part of that. When I recovered, I promised myself I was going to create a legacy with my second chance, a legacy of life, love and respect." She pauses for a moment, thinking. "I really feel that smack in the forehead was a wakeup call." Not that Julia was a yuppie-in-training. At the time of the accident, she was working as a bartender in Fayetteville, Arkansas, hardly the pathway to the upwardly mobile lifestyle. Even then, her ultimate goal was quite noble. "I wanted to retire by age 40, own a plot of land and raise adopted children on it." "Still, I was raised very poor. It was humiliating. So, I had a real desire to have money. The accident made me question this desire, and it put me on a spiritual journey. It made me realize how much we are all manipulated, how those with money use it to manipulate the world." "I believe in a creator, a higher power," she announces. "And I believe we were put on earth to create, not to destroy." Her journey took her west the summer of 1997, and though she left with her destination unknown, she knew she had found what she was looking for when she saw the ancient redwoods. It was love at first sight. She stumbled onto activists from Earth First!, and soon she was joining in on their civil-disobedience campaign. The rest, as they say, is history. Despite her involvement in their tree-sit and campaign to save the ancient redwoods, she is not (as widely reported) a member of Earth First! herself. "I don't mean that as disrespect for Earth First! or for my friends who are part of it. I support peaceful protests, and I support their involvement in them. However, when you join a group, you lose your sense of individualism, and that is something which is very important to me." Having said that, she defends Earth First! from public smears and attacks labeling it as a terrorist group, and the charge certainly bothers her. "The people I am in contact with from Earth First! are dedicated to peace, and it is just an attempt to discredit those who want to save our forests. Let me ask you, Pacific Lumber wiped out seven family homes in Stafford with their logging practices: is that 'terrorist' activity? Who are the ones behaving like 'extremists'? Who are the ones who are 'radical'? They've been napalming the clearcut to destroy vegetation, dumping 40 gallons of diesel fuel per acre. You tell me who are the real terrorist." Continued In Part II ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From The Konformist ( http://www.konformist.com ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Search /RENEGADE/ for articles on Julia Butterfly & Luna - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?JULIA Search /RENEGADE/ for articles on Headwaters - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?HEADWATERS Search /RENEGADE/ for articles on Forest Action - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?FOREST /RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi? and just type in your topic. 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