This is total poppycock. Wishful thinking based on ignorance. Minneapolis was the base of operations for the Northern Sun Alliance, the old anti-war group that met and strategized at the old Riverside Cafe on the West Bank over how to organize the farmers after electric coop members started ranting about the dirty tricks employed by the co-op associations building the DC powerline from No. Dakota lignite coal fields to just west of Minneapolis.
Prime movers were Honeywell Project co-founder Marv Davidov and George Crocker of Northern Sun, located near Franklin and Cedar. Both are still active. Crocker runs the North American Water Office. The University of MN was a hotbed of organizing as well. Wellstone and his colleague, Barry M. (Mike) Casper, authored a book called "Powerline." The demonstrations involved thousands of people, including Minneapolis activists and rural citizens alike. Wellstone was not even a leader of this effort. Casper ran as a Lt. Gov. candidate with farmer/protester Alice Tripp. I wrote, produced & directed a Channel 2 documentary in 1979, "Power Play" which traced the weird combination of urban activists from Minneapolis and older farmers from along the sited route of the powerline and the issues they confronted. We won a major journalism award for this, mentioned only because it authenticates the experience. The tactics used, including toppling of powerline towers, never involved Wellstone, and if he was ever arrested, it would have been because he climbed a fence in defiance of the Highway Patrol. Our cameras and microphones were in the field for 8 weeks and I never met Paul Wellstone until long after we aired the finished documentary months later. Minneapolis played a major role in this ongoing protest. Andy Driscoll Saint Paul > From: "James E. Jacobsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 10:21:55 -0600 > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [Mpls] good news bad news > > > The word sabatage wasn't used but the implication was very much that > Wellstone was the 'head of the operation'. Perpich had sent Berman to talk > to Wellstone -their both being proffs- to get him to quit with it and when > Wellstone said 'no way', Perpich was upset. They wouldn't have had this > discussion if Wellstone was just one of a group of 'stand there' protesters. > James Jacobsen // Whittier _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
