#36 Locked down

Maureen and Kim "locked down" to a bulldozer
at the site of the Caltrans construction site
for the Willits Bypass, July 30 (Photo by Ree Slocum)

“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
― Mario Savio

          As I was locked down to this big machine for 7 hours on July 30^th, I thought about the speech that Mario Savio made in 1964 (you can see it here on YouTube). He and others in the Free Speech Movement were protesting the University of California’s ban on students' providing information tables in the university plaza at U.C. Berkeley.
         I stood there and kept thinking, “Sometimes you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears…and make it stop.” I felt I had to do that, even for one day to keep this huge bulldozer from ripping down another hillside down to create “fill,” a pile of dirt for the southern exchange of the Willits bypass. Where there used to be forests on either side of the hill will be huge cement offramps, and if the bypass supporters have their way, a whole lot of fast food restaurants. Progress!
          So at 5 am on Tuesday morning, Maureen and I tucked our hands into a metal pipe about 6 inches wide and 2 feet long, with small chains around our wrists and a metal clasp at the end, which we clipped onto a pin inside the metal pipe. Prior to that, I’d inserted my hand through a metal handle on the bulldozer, so that no one could then pull my arm out. We were “locked down” to the machine.



Maureen and Kim with arms in metal pipe
 (Photo by Ree Slocum)

           I did not know Maureen very much at all before this event. We’d met in the Save Our Little Lake Valley meetings. She is a wonderful free spirit from Arcata, age 66, dedicated to preserving the precious forests we have, like Richardson Grove further north on Highway 101 and also under attack. Being locked down with Maureen for what would be seven hours gave us a long opportunity to share stories about our lives. Soon, we were mulling over our experiences with Caltrans workers, with the press, with supporters who walked up and drove by, waving their hands or honking, and with those who objected to our actions, those yelling, “F#g welfare hippies!”
          When the dozer driver arrived at 6 am, he was understandably and vehemently angry. “You f&g environmentalists! That’s my work you’re taking away from me!” he screamed.

          We are non-violent and practice not responding with anger or sarcasm. “I’m sorry to affect your day's wages," I said, "but you’ll have many years of work here destroying this valley that will never be the same—”

          “Yeah, you’ll be sorry if I start up this machine and plow you under. Your family will be sorry! Your parents will be sorry.”

          Fortunately, he did not take his anger out on us in that way. My heart was pounding.  

          The next two construction workers who arrived also screamed at us. One claimed, “Casey over there has four kids to feed. You’re taking the food out of their mouths.”

         

Little Lake Valley Wetland (photo, Steve Eberhard)

    “You’re taking 2000 acres of farmland out of this valley.” But neither Maureen nor I wanted to interact much with them in that situation. It’s not like either side is going to convince the other that we are right in such a tension-filled interaction.

          

So why pull this action? It's a rare opportunity to bring dramatic attention to our cause in even a small way. It's an opportunity to stop the odious destruction reaped by the big machines for one small day in the long, long process of building an unnecessary $300 million dollar cement highway that will destroy so much precious land and spend so much precious money (as my previous blogs on the topic have pointed out).

Wetland being drained with 85' deep plastic  "wicks"
(Photo, Steve Eberhard)

           Sometimes you just have to say, “Stop! I won’t put up with it anymore! We will not let you proceed without demonstrating our contempt for the destruction that so lacks consciousness about the value of our environment”—even if that makes me merely a friggin’ environmentalist.

         People once believed the earth was flat, after all. 

          I believe that the construction of the Willits Bypass is contributing to global climate change, and the destruction of a precious wetland that will never be repaired by the mitigation that Caltrans promises.

          I believe that Caltrans manipulated data regarding the need for a 4-lane bypass in order to gain public approval of their overbuilt behemoth.

          I believe Caltrans has refused to listen to the viable alternative plans for an alternate route that the Willits community created and desperately wants. Why have they refused? Because Caltrans wants a regional route to fulfill their own corporate purposes, so what Willits really wants and needs is not important.

          I believe Caltrans has been and will continue to be sorely mismanaged, utilizing fraud and strong arming techniques (after all, they have the paramilitary force of the California Highway Patrol to help them build their highway) to get their way. They have the guns and the tanks, they have the power to get what they want. If they think we are so few in number, why are they so angry with us as we try to remain non-violent with them?

         I’ve had lots of time to think about these contradictions while I've been not only locked down to that machine but also locked down in jail for two more days.

          In upcoming blogs, I’ll continue the story of what happened with supporters that day, including Steve Keyes who also got arrested on Tuesday, what happened with our police negotiations, and what happened when we went off to the county jail in Ukiah. We didn’t get out until Thursday morning, and much transpired in the meantime that has provided rich food for thought--and for action.