Potter - Green is the new red : an insiders account of a social movement under siege

Will Potter is an award-winning independent journalist based in Washington, D.C., who focuses on eco-terrorism, the environmental and animal rights movements and civil liberties post-9/11. He has written for publications including the Chicago Tribune , the Dallas Morning News and Legal Affairs , and has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting. Potter has also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union on policy issues including the Patriot Act. He is the creator of GreenIsTheNewRed.com, where he blogs about the Green Scare.

Green

IS THE

New

Red

An Insiders Account of a Social Movement Under Siege

Will Potter

City Lights Books | San Francisco

Copyright 2011 by Will Potter

All Rights Reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Potter, Will, 1980

Green is the new red : an insiders account of a social movement under siege / Will Potter.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-87286-538-9

1. Green movementUnited States. 2. EcoterrorismUnited States. 3. EnvironmentalistsUnited States. I. Title.

GE197.P68 2011

320.5 ' 80973dc22

2010053209

City Lights Books are published at the City Lights Bookstore,

261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.

Visit our website: www.citylights.com

For Madre.

Roses will bloom.

Here comes the future and you cant run from it If youve got a blacklist I want to be on itBilly Bragg

CHAPTER ONE

June 3, 2007 For a few seconds at a time, today feels like any other day, maybe even like a vacation, and Daniel McGowan forgets what he knows will happen tomorrow. The wind blows west through Oregons Willamette National Forest, rustling the dense lower patchwork of vine maple, dogwood and red alder. The rodlike Douglas firs pay no attention to the breeze as they reach over two hundred feet to the sun, just as they have for three hundred, four hundred, five hundred years. If he breathes deeply enough, McGowan might smell tansy in the wind, or perhaps its camphor; so many wild things have grown over each other and into each other for so long its hard to tell which. If he breathes deeper still, he might taste the white water of Fall Creek before seeing or hearing it. He breathes in, pulls the wind and creek and forest deep into his lungs, and slowly releases them. Then McGowan remembers that at nine oclock on Monday morning hell be wearing his best suit, the black one with three buttons, and hell be sitting quietly with his hands folded in his lap, staring blankly ahead, while a U.S. District Court judge sentences him to prison as a terrorist.

He steals a few more seconds and fights off thoughts of tomorrow. He tries to forget that his statement to the court needs another practice reading, that his press release needs editing, and that his dad, his sister and his wife, Jenny Synan, will be sitting on rigid pews in the front row of the courtroom, silently crying. Right now McGowan has paused on the trail to Fall Creek, with his nose three inches away from a stegosaurus of an ant walking along a smooth moist stone. He yells to his wife, standing right behind him. Jenny, check this out! He is crouching, hands on his knees, mouth open and smiling, tongue poking out the left side. My niece Lily would be so excited, he says. Lily loves bugs.

This is one Daniel McGowan, Daniel the Uncle. The Daniel who knows everything Lily loves and doesnt love, all of her favorite stories and favorite jokes and who says, in one excited breath, Did I tell you what Lily did the other day seriously she is so goddamn adorable I cant even tell you. There may be a thousand more Daniels. How many depends on who you ask. Federal prosecutors say there are Djenni, Dylan Kay, Jamie Moran, Sorrel, Rabid: the aliases he used during his underground life when he destroyed genetically engineered crops and helped commit two arsons as part of the Earth Liberation Front. McGowan earned one of the names after hiking near this same creek years ago, when a friend showed him the edible, heart-shaped leaves of the sorrel herb. McGowan ate the plant by the handful. It gave me the shits, he says. His mouth is now full of the green foliage, and as he follows the trail he periodically reaches for more, having either forgotten the past or made a concerted effort not to remember.

At least two more Daniels walk through the forest this afternoon, Todays Daniel and Tomorrows Daniel. Like the others, they curse like sailors, the sons of an Irish New York City cop from Queens. Todays Daniel takes center stage, cracking jokes and performing for his small audience, a handful of somber friends. Most of all he tries desperately to make his wife smile. As if bracing for her husbands terrorism sentencing were not difficult enough, Synan has had sneezing fits, watery eyes and shortness of breath since stepping off the plane yesterday. Burr-ragweed, mugwort, vetch, fireweed, smotherweed, knotweed, smartweed, barnyard grass, cocks-spur grass, false rye grass, quaking grass, panic grass. They may not all be here in the forest right now, but they are somewhere in the wind, finding their way to Synans nose. Brooklyn has less-than-pristine air, full of taxicab exhaust and godknowswhatelse, but at least concrete doesnt make you sneeze. Not as much, at least. On their first date, back in New York, McGowan brought Synan a bouquet of allergy medicine. This is nature, Jenny, na-a-a-ture, he says to her now, grinning. Synan looks too exhausted to laugh, but he persists. Jenny! Jenny! he shouts, pointing to the trees behind her. Watch out for pygmies! She rolls her red eyes.

Todays Daniel must also remember the two-man camera crew that has followed him for six months, trying to film every fundraiser, happy hour and family gathering for a documentary about his case. Their clock is ticking. Once McGowan reports to prison they will have limited opportunities to tape him, even fewer if he reports to a maximum-security facility. McGowan does not want their only footage to be of Defeated Daniel. What message would that send to the FBI? What message would that send to the movement?

McGowan wears a wireless microphone that peeks out of the top of his black T-shirt. The battery pack hooks onto his black shorts, cut well below his knees. He approaches the water. He keeps his game face on, giving the filmmakers the sound bites, monologues and close-ups they need, but never letting them too close. If the mood feels too heavy, he redirects the conversation. He pulls a six-pack of microbrewed beer from a nook made by two rocks in the creek, where friends had placed it to chill. He hoists it triumphantly. Look, we caught some wild beer! Sometime in the same act, different scene, McGowan pauses briefly and turns back to the camera crew. I think were getting some interference. Do you want me to ask the river to be quiet? Want me to unplug that shit?

Tomorrows Daniel is always nearby, though, and now he takes a seat on the river rock. He rails against activist groups like the Rainforest Action Network and Ruckus Society, groups he has volunteered with for years, groups that refused to speak out against the government labeling him a terrorist. McGowan and his attorneys volunteered to write a letter to the court if only the groups would lend their name and credibility. But these national organizations didnt want to publicly support a saboteur. Thats understandable, McGowan says, but cant they at least say destroying genetically engineered crops is not the same as flying planes into buildings?