Spirit in Action

Redwoods, Poisons, Free Speech & Medicinal Pot - Healing Work from Mendocino

Ed Nieves is coordinator of the Mendicino Environmental Center (MEC) in Ukiah, CA, a place and an organization which has been at the center of cutting edge change to improve the world, starting locally. Saving the Redwoods, banning pesticides & herbicides, legalizing medical marijuana, protecting free speech - there's a locus of community healing issuing from Mendocino County, MEC, and station KMEC-LP.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 20 Mar 2016
Audio Format:: other

(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - There are a number of stations nationwide which broadcast spirit in action. And one of them is KMEC in Mendesino County, California. And while talking with them recently, I had a crash course in some of the innumerable ways in which they've been part of shaping history and healing the world. So I bring to you today Ed Nieves, the stations program manager who is also the coordinator for the Mendesino Environmental Center. Really, so many important actions and initiatives have been built and disseminated from this area that we can all learn from them. Ed Nieves joins me by phone from Yukiah, California at station KMEC. Ed, I'm really happy that you could join me today for spirit in action. - Thank you, Mark. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this program. I appreciate it. - Now, I ran into you because, as is my habit, I tried to contact the stations where my programs are aired. And at KMEC, you've been carrying spirit in action for quite a while. Could you tell me about KMEC? And then we'll backtrack to the Mendesino Environmental Center itself. - KMEC has now been in existence for eight years. And we are a low power radio station in Yukiah, California. Yukiah is the county seat of the county of Mendesino. And we are the alternative to the alternative. So we have, for example, a public radio station. And they do quite a bit of NPR, National Public Radio, those types of programming, modalities, would come out for them. I tend to be more the person who brings programs that would otherwise not be heard. And that's what we do here is we give everybody in the community who wants it a voice. If they want their own program, then I'm doing everything I can, including pulling programs, a hand program in order to make it possible for people to participate. And if all they want to do is come in and talk, whether it be about music or politics or whatever's of interest to them, we have an open door policy. Like I said, KMEC has been here for eight years. We just finally, as well as getting our license re-approved for the next eight years, we just finally got the FCC also to approve us putting our antenna in a different location. Which for us is significant. The antenna has sat on top of our building, which is right in the center of the valley. And so our signal was not as strong, the quality was not as good. But now we're gonna be putting it up on the hillside. One of our listeners has offered us that opportunity and given us a lease for the next eight years. And so our quality and our sound and our range is going to increase significantly. That's KMEC in a nutshell. Like I said, we're the alternative to the alternative and we like to think of ourselves as being the voice of the community. - The way I understand it, the Mendocino Environmental Center, MEC or MAC, has been there for closing in on three decades, but that the center took on KMEC, the Lopara FM station, within the past decade. I realize that the center is working to make the world a better place in so many ways. Why take on the project of the radio station? - Well, you know, it's an interesting thing. You know, your program is called Spirit and Action. And one of the things that I love about this county where I live, this place, Mendocino County, is that there are tremendous number of people who live their lives that way. They have a vision, they have a dream, they see the benefit for doing something, and then they go after it. So we had a core group of four members here at the Environmental Center who now almost 13, 14 years ago, first had the vision of having a radio station. And they came to the board of directors, and I remember I was on the board at that time, and they said, "Hey, we'd like to do this." And we were like, "Okay, well, all right, "there are a couple of things we'd rather "didn't happen on that radio station." Hate speech was one of them, speech that was derogatory or demeaning to women. You know, there were certain guidelines, minimal, but nonetheless, they were brought to the table by board members, particularly the women who were members of that board were really adamant on what types of things they didn't want. They were quite open to having any kind of programming as long as, again, there was no hate speech, and it wasn't demeaning to women or to people of color. So this core group of four individuals got together, and they saw it as being a benefit to the community, to have an alternative, again, to the alternative, which is our public radio station. And so they held onto that dream, that vision. They organized first in the schools, at the high school here in particular, and they brought young people in and started the station around a core group of young people and these four individuals once they got their license. So it really was about offering a service to the community that these folks felt was necessary and would be appreciated. They just stayed on it. They held that vision and they held space for it, and it's come to fruition. And now, looking back on it, I don't think we understood at the time the impact that this radio station would have, because our public radio station went from being, what I could think of as being much more progressive and much more the voice of the community to being more restricted and less open to the community and less transparent and less available for folks. So now we've become that outlet for so many people. And with the internet, we can go anywhere in the world. People anywhere can hear it. So people all over the county can listen to what we're putting out on the air. And again, have that other voice, that other perspective that they might not be getting from where else. - There's a kind of interesting alignment of the stars perhaps, because although I haven't spent a lot of time in California, way back in 1977, as I was hitchhiking through California, it happens that I spent overnight in Yukaya, having breakfast the following morning with Holly Neers folks, and then continued north, where I ended up spending a few hours in Garberville, forming a really emotional connection to the town. And it turns out that two of the four places in California that carry my programs are KMEC in Yukaya and KMUD in Garberville. So is it just some kind of spirit mingling or vibes connection that were formed by my powerful visits that led folks to years later, carrying my programs? Perhaps you can speak on how my program and other programs get selected for a broadcast on KMEC, Ed. - I've been in this position of program manager for the station and coordinator for the Environmental Center now, a little over two years. And when I got here, there was already a bunch of programming in place. So what I did was I sat down and reviewed that programming and said, well, how much of this is actually relevant to our listenership? And how much of this is of interest? And which ones are worth keeping and which ones are not and that kind of thing? And then what I did was I just started a search, organizations like Radio for All, AudioPort, which is a Pacifica site, just started looking at what was available and just doing searches based on keywords. What are the types of things that are important to us? Ah, spirit, spirit's definitely important to us. You know, action, right? So as I started doing that, I would come across these programs and I'd say, hmm, how do I feel about this one? Oh, I like that. Now I like it, but will the rest of the community like it? Is there a message? Is there a value here? I mean, what can we learn and gain from listening to these programs? And from my perspective, any program that addresses building community or that addresses ways that we can live in these challenging times and ways that can help us to build infrastructure so that future generations will have a greater opportunity to live fulfilled lives and sustainable lives, self-sufficient lives. All of that type of programming is what I've been looking for and then filling those spaces with so that we can have that out there in the community. So the people know, oh, you know what, it's not just me and it's not just my neighborhood or my community, but rather there's this movement across the globe and we're a part of it and look, here's another example. That's what I'm looking for and that's what I try to provide. It's programming that's gonna be a value to us as a community, local community, and as a global community. Let me start by saying that if you take ukaya and you spell it backwards, you get the word haiku. And we actually have a haiku festival every year. (laughing) - You had no idea. - Do you see where I'm saying, I mean, when we talk about spirit and we talk about the beauty of juxtaposition, that's it. It's ukaya on the one hand which came from the name of a local band of indigenous folks who called this the ukaya valley, well, not quite ukaya, but a similar word, which means deep valley. And the Pomo who are the indigenous folks who are still here, by the way, they had place names. So this was a deep valley, this was the hill with the crooked tree, that type of a thing. Their connection was with place. And that's ukaya, there is this connection with place and with the beauty of it, the symmetry of poetry and all of that that exists here, mind you, we have our difficulties. But having said all that, there's also this sense of spirit that runs through our community that is wonderful and it's just beautiful. (laughing) We do what we can, both locally and globally. And so I try to make that possible for people to hear that and to feel it and to know it and to know that we're not alone in our community, but rather we're part of a movement that's worldwide of people that are concerned about. Life on this planet, the direction of the military industrial complex, the corporate rule, all those things that seem to be, in my opinion now, okay, in my opinion, dangerous to humanity. Issues that address our lives, but don't give us the opportunity to have the say in the way that we live our lives. So those types of things are constantly trying to address here through K-MEC. - Well, let's talk about Mendocino, ukaya and Redwoods. One thing I know about your area of Northern California is the absolutely beautiful majestic trees. A lot of the images of California are of the Uber metropolitan area around San Francisco and LA. But what's it like in ukaya, especially in terms of the environment? - Well, you know, we're a rural county. We're the fourth largest county geographically in California, and yet we only have 90,000 people living here. So we are pretty well spread out. Ukaya itself has 15,000 people. It's the largest city in the county. And maybe a third of the population of the county lives within 30 minutes, 35 minutes of ukaya. And then the rest of it is really spread out with a couple of other cities that have maybe nine, 10,000 people in each of them. So not very large. We are, however, having said that, we have a history of being a county where people have come to extract resources, particularly lumber, but also salmon and a lot of tan oaks were planted here. I mean, they were here already, but then they were planted in large numbers so that people could use that for canning back towards the turn of the last century. So they grew a lot of those trees and they caught a lot of them down. Fishing was a major part of the industry here for a long time. And a lot of that has been depleted as well, although the fisheries here are making a rebound and that that's good. We have one of the most beautiful coastlines in America right here and more diversity of sea life. One of the things I do, by the way, is I'm a seaweed harvester. I've been a seaweed harvester for about 17 years. And that's a whole 'nother story that runs all the way back to when I was a kid living in New York City. But the upwelling that we get from the ocean here brings in so many nutrients that we have this incredible abundant sea life along our coast. And so that was one of those areas that they were exploiting, the ocean, the salmon, like I say, the redwood trees. At one point, we had Masonite here. We had Georgia Pacific. We had Louisiana Pacific, you know, robber baron types who were out to exploit the natural resources and take it as quickly and as much of it as they could and as short a period of time as they could. The Mendocino Environmental Center has been here for 26 years. And it was started because Walmart was coming to town. And the site where Walmart was going to be built happened to have a rare and endangered flower. And so some of the folks in the community were really concerned both with the Walmart coming and with the flowers being destroyed because there were so few of them left. The long of the short of it is that nine people got together and they started this organization. And shortly after that, forestry issues became of great concern. So there were events, something called Redwood Summer, for example, where Judy Berry and other members of the Mendocino Environmental Center organized college students throughout California and across the country, for that matter, to come out and to help and preserve and protect redwood trees. When I first got here about, oh, 1982 and by that, I mean California. At that point, we still had about 5% of the old growth trees left. Right now, there's maybe 3% of old growth trees left on the face of the planet. And most of them are in three counties. Mendocino County, Humboldt County, and then Del Norte County, which is north of Humboldt, that goes to the Oregon border. Today, it's not Louisiana Pacific and it's not Georgia Pacific, but it's the gap. The Fisher family that owns the gap owns 10% of Mendocino County. Campbell Group, which is another organization, timber folks who've come in and bought up old lands from Georgia Pacific, they're here. And from their perspective, it's all about return on investment. How quickly can we take trees? How quickly can we get to single-age stands? A Mendocino Redwood company tends to be a little more diverse than that. They'll leave some big trees and they want more of an uneven-age stand. But nonetheless, if you cut down 30,000 trees in a year, those 30,000 trees are going to be of an even-age. A year from now, five years from now, 35 years from now, when you get ready to cut them down again. Resource extraction is still part of the equation for us, as is the practices that they use while extracting those. So the greatest concern when it comes to forestry issues for us right now is the use of herbicides and pesticides in the forest. They do something a practice called Hackensquirt. So let's take Mendocino Redwood Company, for example. They will have a timber harvest plan. They'll go out. And they will have identified within that timber harvest plan that there are three acres of hardwoods-- oaks, madrones, manzanita, for example-- and decide that those are no longer in keeping with their particular plan. So they'll take an axe or a machete or a chainsaw, cut a notch in the tree, and then inject it with a poison that will kill the tree and leave it standing. Well, it's one thing if I cut down a tree and I cut the debris up a little bit and I let it fall back into the forest floor, it's another thing if I've poisoned the tree and I leave that tree standing to dry, then it becomes a serious fire hazard. And not only is a fire hazard, but if there should be a fire, then the residual poisons that are in that tree can become other compounds, like dioxins. So the danger to human beings breathing that stuff is considerable, especially for the young, for our elderly, for those folks who already have respiratory problems. The danger from fire when you live out in a rural area and your neighbor has got 200,000 acres next to you and the danger of fire is such that if the wind starts to blow, your house could go with it, you know, you want to stand around, at least, if it's at all possible and put water on your roof, you want to make sure you've got enough time to get your animals out. If you're sucking up fumes from a fire that are also dangerous to your health, then how effective are you going to be in being able to get your livestock and yourself and your family? There's just so many different issues for us. I'll go back to, again, resource extraction and one person or small group's desire to make a profit on what God and the universe have provided. Let's put it that way. So let me go back to Mendocino County. Like I say, those are issues of concern to us. At the same time, we are this incredible community that organizes itself and makes things happen. So we were the first county in America to pass an ordinance banning the growing of GMOs in our community. And that's because, you know, three people sat down, started to say, well, you know, here's this issue, it's of concern, it's getting to be worse. How do we protect ourselves? How do we protect future generations? And then that group of three became a group of seven and that group of seven became 22 and then 22 became 32. And before you knew it, we had an initiative on the ballot and we took on Monsanto and others that were supporting the pro-GMO stands and we won. And that's because people knew that they could do it because that group of three people had had their own small victories along the way that empowered them and gave them the sense that, you know, we can do this. We're the little engine that could, that's Mendocino County. We were the first county to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. Literally passed an initiative allowing someone to grow up to 25 plants on their parcel of land. Whatever people might think about marijuana, the fact that it is now moving towards legalization in more and more states and it's been legalized in Colorado and the research that's being done, the efficacy of using marijuana for treating different types of illnesses is huge. I really take pride in the fact that I got arrested at Walmart because the person who brought that initiative to the voters of Mendocino County, he got arrested at Walmart three days before I did, expressing his right to get people to sign a petition. So another eight of us went down there, actually more than eight of us. So about 50 of us went and protested and eight of us got arrested and that went on to become a precedent set in case in California in terms of our ability to go out and express our rights and to be able to ask people to sign our petitions and to do that in an unrestricted way that didn't or doesn't abridge our rights or the rights of anybody else for that matter. Those types of things are huge. - Well, sounds like there's just so much to talk about, but let me break in for a moment here to remind our listeners that we're speaking to Ed Nievas today. He's coordinator of the Mendocino Environmental Center and program manager of their Associated Low Power FM Station, K-M-E-C or K-Mac. And Ed is my guest today for Spirit in Action, a Northern Spirit Radio production on the web at nordenspiritradio.org with more than nine and a half years of programs for free listening and download. And you'll also find information about and links to our guests there. So you can find contact information for the Mendocino Environmental Center. That's M-E-C, and their site is M-E-C Grassroots.org. And it might just be easier to find them via nordenspiritradio.org. You'll also find a place to leave comments because we love two-way communication, which is one of the reasons I'm talking to Ed Nievas of the K-Mac station where this program is carried. Also on my site, there's a place where you can click to support and donate to nordenspiritradio, which is crucial to keep this work going. But even more important, and hopefully, at the top of your to-do list, is supporting. With your hands and wallet, the local community radio stations that carry this program. Really, community radio carries a slice of news and of music that you'll find nowhere else on the American radio waves. So start by supporting K-Mac and other community radio stations to support the exceptional alternative voice that they carry. Now back to you, Ed. I kind of cut you short as you were waxing eloquent about the huge number of wonderful things that exist in and come out of Mendocino County and the Mendocino Environmental Center. I guess that the overall question is still the same. So what's so great about your particular plot on this earth? - This place is beautiful. I mean, it is really, really fundamentally beautiful, but it's the people, it's the beauty of the people here that is why I live here. And there are so many of them that do so much good work that I can't begin to name them all. But what we do at the MEC is we serve as a resource center. If you're out on the coast and it takes you an hour to get into town and you want to go to the board of supervisors or if you've got something at the courthouse, you'll stop in at the MEC and use this as your staging ground for the next thing that's going to go on. Maybe there's a group of you coming from the coast. So five or six or seven people will get together and they'll use the MEC as their hub. Or they want to pass on a message from the coast for something that's going on, some action of some sort or another or some fundraiser or whatever it might be. That word comes to us from them and then we disseminate it out. If you want to know about forestry issues, you come in here and you can sit down with somebody who's knowledgeable or you can take a piece of reference material, a book, a DVD, CD, whatever and take that home with you. So we as the Environmental Center are really a hub of information and of networking and communication. And I've just blown away by the quality of people that live in this county and the work that they do, the issues that they take on. When they were, we were bombing Iraq and they were talking about people going there and being human shields. Well, I know two of them personally. People from my county who got on a plane and went there and put their bodies and their lives in the way. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather live. And I've lived in phenomenal places. I've lived in Oregon. I've lived in Alaska. I lived in Seattle. I grew up in New York City. All wonderful places, but they're not Mendocino County. And the spirit, the soul, the people that are here and what they do in the world is really significant. And from my perspective, it's phenomenal. Which is why I'm doing what I'm doing. I left my job. I was a counselor in the schools. And when I turned 50, I thought to myself, okay, you know, like I'm ready to do something else that's even more beneficial to my community. And it took me about two years to unwind myself from that job. But once I did, then the door opened up at the meck and somebody asked me to sit on the board of directors and before you knew it, I was managing and coordinating and all of that. And again, it's more important for me to be here and put 30 hours in a week as a volunteer than it is for me to go out and get a job. 'Cause I don't think that that as valuable is what I'm doing in the moment. I just can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. And luckily I have a family and a partner who support that and who understands the importance of it. Not just for me personally, you know, in my own sense of satisfaction and the like, but for our community as well. And I'd say that Mendocino County and the people of Yucaya are fortunate to have Ed Nieves there volunteering such valuable time and energy for the common good. You said, Ed, that there was no way you could name all of the hardworking people connected with Mendocino Environmental Center who have made such an important difference, but I'd like to talk about the specifics of at least some of them. You already mentioned Judy Barr, who's with Earth First, made such an important difference as the force behind what came to be known as Redwood Summer. Could you tell us a little bit about Judy? Though unfortunately, she's no longer with us having died of cancer back in 1977. She was involved with the Mendocino Environmental Center and with Earth First. And I don't know which came first, which is the chicken, which is the egg. (laughing) Judy came after the Environmental Center was already up and established. I wasn't here when Judy came in the door. So I can't say what her story was exactly, but I know that when I got here to the county and found that there were things going on in the woods close to where I was living, that I was concerned about forestry issues, that I came into the Environmental Center and the first person I met was Betty Ball, who used to be the coordinator back then. And I said, you know, I live out on Or Springs Road and I would like to do something about forestry and watershed issues 'cause I'm concerned. I hear the chainsaws going, I see the mud in the streams. I see the trucks, the logging trucks coming and going on a regular basis. In fact, I've gone out there and taken a look and it's a mess. And she said, well, Ed, I think you should go talk to Elle's Cooper rider. And I said, great, how do I find her? She said, well, you know, she lives probably within a mile of your house. (laughing) And that's what the mech is about. You know, is being able to connect people. So she connected me with someone, Elle's, who, by the way, was one of the founders of the Mendecino Organic Network. And one of the movers behind Measure H, which was the anti-GMO initiative. And prior to that, she stopped Caltrans. Caltrans is a California transportation department from spraying herbicides and pesticides along our roadways in Mendecino County. They no longer do that. They use mechanical methods to get rid of the grass and the weeds and whatever else they want to get rid of because she got out in the middle of the freeway highway 101 and stopped their trucks with her body physically, okay? So Elle's is, for example, one of those people. And Judy, when Judy came here, Judy came as someone who had a background in organizing workers. So part of her thought was that she would organize timber workers as she got into the issues and really got into the concept of deep ecology, that the planet is sentient and that we need to protect life on this planet. She saw the runaway wholesale destruction of forest lands. She became activated in a way that, because of the force of her personality, that other people said, you know what, you're right. Can I help you? Let me join with you. And before you know it, she was working here and in Humboldt County to change the practices that were being used. And Judy was a lightning rod. There were people who liked her and there were people who didn't like her. Obviously, somebody tried to bomb her. They put a bomb under her car seat. She was almost run off the road. She had two kids in the back seat of her car and a logging truck blogger said later he didn't realize that the kids were in the back, otherwise he wouldn't. But just the idea that you try to run somebody off the road, even if it's to scare them. Like I said, she was a lightning rod and there were those people who adored Judy and then there were those who feared her and then there were those who hated her. But she stuck to it and she was able to put together a group of people that stretched from Humboldt County down to the Bay Area and down to Santa Cruz even further south and to bring people together in huge numbers for Redwood Summer and for other events. So people like Judy, people like Betty Ball who is one of the coordinators at the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. Talk about Chiro's, Betty is one of them. It's one thing to be Judy Berry or Els Cooper Rider and be out there in the forefront leading the wave. It's another thing to be the person who sits in the back room and does all the paperwork and makes all the connections by phone and by mail and doing that kind of stuff. And when it comes to the nuts and bolts kinds of things, Betty and her husband, Gary, who passed away, they were the bedrock of the Mendocino Environmental Center and the Mendocino County Environmental Community. So many folks, the Willets Environmental Center, we have a phenomenal group of folks up in Willets which is just 30 minutes from here. They are experts at lawsuits, particularly environmental suits and for addressing those issues that are going to put a halt to this activity or that activity or at least slow it down to give us an opportunity to negotiate, to organize, to educate. There's just this amazing group of people here in this county that are constantly, constantly working to make it a better place to live, both here in the county and on the planet. - And spreading it around the planet, that's how these things tend to go. When individuals in groups like Judy and the Mendocino Environmental Center do what was not dreamed possible, then others catch on to the possibilities and a force for change rolls across the world. I'd like to talk about some of the details of Judy Berry's work and experience. You mentioned already the pipe bomb. I understand that first, when the bomb went off under the seat in her car, that first the police or FBI testimony was that the bomb was in the foot space in the back seat and that the FBI was immediately accusing Judy of transporting the bomb to wreak havoc on perhaps the loggers. So she was rushed to the hospital at death store and within an hour or two, she was arrested. Please fill in some of the details. - Well, within an hour of the bomb going off, the FBI was there in Oakland and they were arresting her and Daryl Turner, who was also in the car with her and if folks are interested, they can see the movie Who Bomb Judy Berry, which Daryl Turner put together. And it really is incredible because it's all from depositions. He started to go out there and film a story and then he decided, wait a second, we've got all this. So that's what he did was he just used depositions and it really is a good piece of film and people who are interested can find it online and they can get a hold of Daryl. It's C-H-E-R-N-E-Y. They can get a hold of Daryl and maybe have a screening in their community. It's well worth seeing. So Judy was accused of having carried the bomb herself and of planning to use that bomb, mind you. This is the same woman who went to an Earth first rally and said, we have to stop spiking trees and doing those types of things that are endangering the lives of forest workers. I don't agree with the fact that they're cutting down these trees, but to be violent, to use violence against them, to threaten a man's life and his family's ability to survive is not something that we can do any longer. If you folks wanna go out there and put sand in somebody's tractor, that's your business. But the moment you start to endanger someone else's life as opposed to a piece of equipment, then that's where we have to draw the line. So it wasn't in her nature to go out and bomb someone. And in fact, there was another bomb that went off at a mill site here. And that was part of the lawsuit that Judy Berry and Daryl Churney brought against the FBI was that the investigation never moved forward. There was even a letter to the Ukiya Daily Journal into the Santa Rosa press Democrat and Santa Rosa is about an hour south of us from an anonymous source saying, "Hey, I'm the bomber." And here are some clues, but still they refused to follow up those leads and no, it was, "Well, she's got nails in her backyard." Well, Judy was a builder. As she put it, they took my fiddle 'cause she was a phenomenal musician. So they took her violin. Come on, folks. How does that tie into this investigation? They did everything they could except to follow up on who the real bomber might have been. And that's one of the reasons that Daryl put this movie together was so that people could take a look at what it was that the FBI had done and not done it. So yeah, they accused her, but I think those people who knew her personally knew right away that it was and even close to being possible. I didn't know her when it happened, but I was in Oakland that day 'cause I used to live down there in the Bay Area. And I remember hearing it on KPFA and that my first thought was there's no way. There's no way that anybody who's, you know, is gonna set the bomb under, even in the backseat, much less under their seat, right? Not one that's armed. It just doesn't make any sense to me. How could you do that, right? Even I knew that it didn't make any sense. And she was able to prove that. And they won $4 million settlement through the courts from the FBI. When you see Judy, if you see her in videos or you hear her sing, you realize that the woman had an incredible wit and a great sense of humor. And she was always trying to do that, create a picture that people could understand. She was also a dynamic speaker. You would hear her and you'd go, "Wow, listen to this woman. I'm from New York. I mean, I grew up around dynamic speakers and I would go, "Wow." To this day, I still listened to her from time to time, either singing or some spoken word thing or some interview that she did. And I go, "Wow, listen to this woman." You know, she just really was in tune. And yes, she did things that were in hindsight ridiculous. So there is a photograph of Judy running around somewhere where she's holding a machine gun. Some guy in will it said, "Hey, come on, let's take this photograph here. You guys are all radicals." Turned out that he was also supported by other forces in the community that wanted to... - Be smurcher? - Yeah, exactly. And so again, there is this photograph of her with a machine gun, Ma Barker or something. - Or like the picture of Jane Fonda in an aircraft in North Vietnam, which they used as propaganda. - Exactly. I mean, same kind of a thing, right? She made an impact on a lot of people's lives here. A lot of the activists that I know knew her personally and went on actions with her. And every one of them's got a different story about this thing or that thing that she did or that they did together. And then everybody laughed rocketly because it was funny. We have a local paper, the Anderson Valley Advocate out of Booneville and the publisher of that paper and Judy Berry did not get along. And he was always writing things about Judy and they weren't nice things. And so what does Judy do? Judy and Naomi Wagner, and it might have been Priscilla's. Well, anyway, a couple of them, knowing that he had his paper printed in Willits, knowing who the printer was and knowing what time of the day and on which day he normally showed up there to have this thing printed, they way laid the person who was delivering an edition of his paper. When they got him looking in one direction and talking, they exchanged copy so that when the paper came out, here were these things in the paper that he hadn't planned on going in there. (laughing) Judy and Naomi and these others placed in there. So, I mean, she was playful as well, as well as being dedicated and serious and committed to what she was doing. And her vision and her understanding, I think, expanded over time. The more she was here in this county and the more she was facing off with loggers and the timber companies and the like, and the more she could see that the resource was going to be gone and that the jobs were gonna be gone and that it wasn't sustainable, the more her vision, in terms of deep ecology and taking care of the environment, solidified and got strengthened. More so even, I think, than the work that she was doing trying to unionize workers. - So that's just one of the many inspirational activists, part of the Mendesino Environmental Center. And again, folks, the center's website is m-e-c-grassroots.org, or easily find the link on nordancepiritradio.org. So, we talked about Judy Berry, Earth First, and Redwood Summer. You mentioned Betty Ball earlier. Did you happen to know Richard Walsh, Johnson Jr. before he died in 2011? - Of course I did. In fact, Richard was the person who wrote Measure G. It's because of Richard that I got arrested. No, I don't wanna put it that way. Yes, Richard Johnson, you know, Richard was a curmudgeon. And Richard decided on his own that marijuana could be legalized from medicinal purposes in Mendesino County. And he had a conversation with people and there wasn't enough support. It just wasn't anybody who wanted to organize with him and get that started and whatever else. But he stuck to it, and then he went out and started gathering signatures to try to get that initiative on the ballot. And he went to Walmart and he was there throughout the whole Christmas season and they didn't bother him. And in January, they didn't bother him. Eventually somebody in Arkansas, no, we can't have that guy out in front of our store trying to get signatures to approve marijuana for any purpose, much less medicinal. (laughs) What would that do to our, you know, anyways, Richard went and he was out there and the guy said, well, you know, the manager said, you're gonna have to go away. Corporate doesn't want you here. We don't want you here, you know, you don't serve a purpose here, go away. Otherwise, we'll call the police. Richard said, no, you don't understand. You can't send me away, all right. The courts have already ruled on this. I have a right to do this. And they were like, no, you don't. So they called the police. The police came out and the police did not wanna arrest him. For good reasons, right? Yeah, right, exactly. And the fact that he was putting out four newspapers monthly probably didn't predispose them to want to arrest him. Well, with that kind of editorial voice at his command. That's right, exactly. He didn't Spanish as well, all right. So what he did was, what the manager did was he said to the police, well, look, I wanna do a citizen's arrest. And they arrested Richard and they took him to jail. And Richard was irate. I mean, it took him four or five hours to get out of there. So serendipity or whatever we wanna call it, he got arrested Thursday. I leave my house Friday morning. I go down the road to my bosses to pick up my paycheck. He's gonna leave it for me and his mailbox. I go to the mailbox, I take out my check. And as I'm doing that, one of my neighbors comes across the street and she says, hey Ed, do you know Richard Johnson? I say, yeah, I know, Richard, I say, why? She said, well, he got arrested yesterday at Walmart. I said, really, what for? She said, well, he was gathering signatures for a petition. And I said to her, I said, wow, that's amazing. And she said, you know, somebody ought to do something about that. I said, you know, you're right. Somebody ought to do something about that. I came into town and the very first thing I did when I came into town, and I don't remember why it was, but for whatever reason, I came here to the Mendocino Environmental Center. And at the time, the person who was coordinator, Linda, I said, Linda, did you hear about Richard? She said, yeah, I said, well, you know, Linda, somebody ought to do something about that. And we are somebody. Right, right, well, and I walked out the door, and I went about my business and did what I needed to do and whatever else, right? And then I'm listening to the radio that night, and I hear that there's a rally called for Monday. Linda McClure had gotten on the phone, started calling people in the community, and then called the local radio station, which at that time was our public radio station, KZYX. And they got the word out that there was going to be this rally on Monday at Walmart. So four days later, after Richard had gotten arrested, eight of us got arrested. One of the people was Dan Hamburg, who had been a former representative from Washington, DC, for the county and had been a supervisor. These were all activists in the community, but one former another. Because of that, we were able to win a victory that to this day has still got an impact. Denny O'Brien, who I mentioned earlier, who has this organization, Shared Jerusalem, who's our treasurer. Denny was threatened by a sheriff's deputy out in front of Rayleigh's store, grocery store, because a woman was standing there trying to get him to sign a petition, and he was going to sign that petition, and the sheriff's deputy had been contacted by the store manager, and he came out to threaten them and tell them that they had to go away and that they couldn't do this, and whatever, whatever. And Denny said, hey, you know what? Somehow, I seem to think that the sheriff would be a little bit concerned about this, and I know you're in the wrong. I used to be an attorney working for the feds. I know what the law is, and the sheriff threatened him. The deputy threatened him. He said, you know, I don't care what the sheriff wants. I'm the officer in charge on this site right now. And if you two don't leave here in this moment, I'm going to arrest you. So Denny started a lawsuit. Needless to say, the sheriff has implemented policies now if a store owner wants a sheriff's deputy to come out and arrest someone, they got to have a court order to do that. And again, it's because of Richard, because Richard said the people of Mendocino County are ready to pass something like this. And what I really love about that initiative was that he limited it to 25 plants. Now, for those people who don't know, 25 plants, if you have a bit of a green thumb, you can easily get three to five pound plants. If you've got a real green thumb, you could get eight pounds per plant. And at $1,000 plus, people could in fact make money in a way that was sustainable, that wasn't impacting, again, for medicinal purposes. It wasn't about recreational use because marijuana use in Mendocino County was already prevalent. But from medicinal use, and to legalize that, and to make it viable for people to do that, was a huge thing. And to keep it just small enough that you could have a mom and cop a little farm and make enough money to get new teeth, or to help put a kid through college, or to put a new roof on your house, or to give some money to your local environmental center, or whatever it is, was a phenomenal stroke. It wasn't until later that the board of supervisors decided on their own course, which was to increase the number to 99 plants. All of a sudden, it was legal for people to grow 99 plants, okay? Which brought the feds down on them. So then the feds came along and said, "Well, you know what? "We want all the information from your records." 'Cause the sheriff had a program, what he called a zip tie program. And you could go, and for $100 or whatever it is, you buy a zip tie, and you put it on there, and sheriff deputies know this plant is legal. And so they leave you alone. They don't come and take your plants in the situation like that. But because it was 99, the feds came in and said, "We want all your records, and you have to stop this, "or we're going to sue you," and so forth and so on. And the board of supervisors voted. Which, from my perspective, was fine, because when they increased it to 99 plants, is when all of that movement into the county from people who wanted to grow marijuana, most of which was not medicinal on purpose, but rather was to be used on the black market for recreational use, is when all of that occurred, and it changed the fabric of our community considerably. And now it's changing back again. Those people are leaving, it's no longer legal. The sheriff and the task force had come down on those types of grows. They're more concerned about the environmental impacts of these grows because people were using generators and pulling water out of our streams and all kinds of stuff that came of it that was never Richard's intention. His was like, okay, there are people who need this for medicinal purposes, who could use it and who could benefit. And by the way, it's okay if people in Mendocino County make a living at it and can get those new teeth or whatever it might be. So that was Richard. And yes, he was a prolific writer, and he did much to organize the Latino community, started something called (speaks in Spanish) the Alliance for Human Rights, for the Latino community, did a lot with migrant workers and around the use of herbicides and pesticides on farms. We have the largest number of organic great growers and vintners in the United States here in Mendocino County. And I attribute a bit of that to the work that Richard did. - So it evidently didn't hurt that he was a curmudgeon. He was somehow able to use that to good effect. - Oh yeah, Richard would go to the board of supervisors every meeting if he needed to, get in their faces. And in that way, he was a role model. Look, you see, you can make change. It's slow, but you can do this. - I also understand that he did an environmental show on K-MEC. - Yeah, he sure did. - So he put out four newspapers each month, did an environmental radio show, and then he goes to the supervisors meeting every week. - And now that he's passed, we still have one of his papers being published here at the MEC. The Mendocino country independent has since gone by the wayside, but there was a bilingual paper called Ed Solby-Lingway. And that one is still being published today here at the MEC. And he has Bizzito, who again, it's another one of those forces in our community. Just the phenomenal woman who's got this incredible background in news reporting and in publishing and the like, who when Richard was passing, he passed it towards to her and a small bit of other folks in the community. And they took it and they stepped up and they continue to publish that paper. It gets wide distribution throughout the whole count. - That's a legacy worth passing on. There are just a couple of things more that I want to try and talk about today. Not only is K-MEC one of the places where spirit and action is syndicated, but there's also some similarity in the structure around K-MEC and the structure that birthed my home radio station, WHYS here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. In your case, the Mendocino Environmental Center acquired the license and then act as the vessel that brought forth in K-MEC. And in my case, a local environmentalist activist organization called Northern Thunder acquired the license and then WHYS was formed to do the broadcasting. So we've got that same kind of dynamic where you have an umbrella environmental organization. In your case, 501 C4 organization, which acts as a container for the radio station. So you kind of have a parent nurturing and passing on to an outgrowth in the radio station, birthing the possibility of better future. - Sure. And you know, originally they applied for a 501 C3 and the IRS said, no, you want to do advocacy work. And so therefore, we're gonna give you that decision, but we will allow you to have a 501 C4, which turned out to be a blessing because the county, I should say that the station and the Mendocino Environmental Center do a lot of advocacy work. And while we don't come out and endorse individual candidates, which is not something we could do legally, we can start our own initiatives, we can work on all kinds of campaigns that are of concern to our membership and to the larger community. So that turned out to be a real blessing. And then Cloudforce Institute serves as our 501 C3 for educational purposes. It's tough as a 501 C4, for example, to get a grant from a foundation. There are very few foundations that will give you that 'cause 501 C4 donations are not tax deductible. But through Cloudforce Institute, folks who want to give money and who want it to be tax deductible and who wanted to go for educational purposes can do that. So we have the best of both worlds. The C4 status really freed us up to do a lot of things, both as a radio station and as an environmental center. - You've got some great stuff going on there in Mendocino County and at the Mendocino Environmental Center. I feel privileged to be counted among the great people and programs you carry on K-Mac. And I'd love to have all of your listeners in the KMEC area pass on to me, ideas and contact info of activists and musicians who would be good for my programs so that I can continue to include a good element of local world healers and musicians from your area. Folks can get in touch with me via the NortonSpiritRadio.org website. That's my invitation to all of you listeners across the country. Please help me make sure that your local content is included in the programs that I provide to you. You can call or email me and we can make this relevant to your local community. And you know, growing and deep in community is what it's all about. And it's certainly true that that's what you've been doing at the Mendocino Environmental Center. Thanks to the center for so many years of work and witness and to you Ed for coordinating the center and directing K-Mac radio station and especially for joining me today for spirit in action. - Well, thank you, Mark. And thank you for what you're doing, you know, because it really all builds community. So thank you 'cause I think that's the most important thing we can be doing. Thanks so much, Ed. A reminder that their website is mecgrassroots.org. It's also linked from NortonSpiritRadio.org. And that there were some wonderful stories and observations shared by Ed Nieves in our visit that I just couldn't fit into this broadcast. So you'll find them as bonus excerpts on NortonSpiritRadio.org. Please visit and listen and please post a comment. And we'll see you next week for Spirit in Action. - The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of NorthernSpiritRadio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ I'm healing ♪