What'm I talkin' about? Check out this post at protestshooter.com, a series of shots from Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 in Berkeley, CA. If you haven't been following this whole mess, UC Berkeley wants to build a sports facility where there are currently some lovely trees they'd planted in the 1920s and the locals are upset and some folks have been living in the trees for a year and a half. The full version is much more complex, and this is really just a meaningless sideshow since it's been in the courts for a long time and they're just hashing over the last few details.... with a series of shots chronicling recent happenings, protestshooter concludes that at some point they just settled down into taking turns making speeches about how important all of this was. I looked around, saw the crowd was about half gone, the media was about all gone, and there was no momentum.
But if you listen to this poor sap (is that you, Jeff Muskrat?) the sky is falling! the sky is falling!
Funny stuff, and great shots!
protestshooter.com/Who is "Dumpster Muffin," you ask? Try a quick google search and get ready to laugh - ALOT!
Related: Earth Firsters need socks!
Greetings Rose! This is Jeff Muskrat and I was in Berkeley helping out the sitters. Check the HFD blog for a video that I'm sure you'll enjoy:)
ReplyDeleteUrban treesits are a viable way of defending greenspace, the year and a half long Berkeley sit is a great example. And, as you know, Nanning Creek(3 years) and Fern Gully(6 years) have succeeded with both THP's expiring this fall.
I'd like to hike you out to see these actions when I return from the Bay Area. Maybe you could change your mind about treesitting. Afterall, experience is everything.
Greetings, Muskrat.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in those Redwood Forests - and I appreciate them in ways that you could never comprehend.
But I do not adhere to the sacred cow mentality. We laugh at India for it, and should guard against that here.
The trees in Berkeley were PLANTED, were they not? This ludicrous treesit is nothing more than a publicity campaign - one that you have been drawn into. There are far more important things you could be doing.
Go out and plant a replacement somewhere - in fact, have you done anything to replace the many many many trees we lost in that big windstorm a few years back? Now there would be something productive for you to do.
Poor fella.
Well, if people in fact were planting trees and focusing on reforestation among other things... perhaps then.. every tree would not be so critical to save.
ReplyDeleteYes it needs attention!
Are you aware that we are losing over 50,000 species per year, we are at Peak Oil and when the activists are trying to save mother earth in any way they can....they are fighting a system that is hell bent on destruction of nature....mother earth.
The trees get cut because people do not see the value of them.
Perspective needs to shift and see the bigger picture.
Football is not important, cement and buildings are not important...trees are important. Only a demented mind would think otherwise.
we are losing over 50,000 species per year,
ReplyDeleteThat is flat out untrue. Back it up. That rhetoric is from the dark ages of the environMENTAL movement.
Those who are doing what they can in a peaceful and non-violent manner to save the earth are actually doing something about it. In such turbulent times, it make it a lot easier to sleep at night.
ReplyDeleteIf caring about trees falling helps you sleep at night, Jeff... you know, you can do what you want, it is a free country, but, you do not own the land those trees sit on, you do not own the trees, you do not have any right to stop the College from cutting them down. they planted them for God's sake, just like I plant stuff in my garden. If you want to plant and save trees, buy yourself some land and do what you want there. Live in the tree if you want.
ReplyDeleteIf stopping trees from falling would save the earth - what happens when we have a windstorm like the one a few years back? How many trees fell that day, Jeff? How many trees burned up in those forest fires? THINK, Jeff. LOOK at the big picture. You have this myopic self indulgent little view of the world.
No. You've been fed a bill of goods, and you're playing it for all it is worth; you're used when the money-grubbers in your movement want to make a big splash and rake in the big bucks, the rest of the time you are just a gnat of an annoyance for people who really have to work in the real world. And those who would use you don't give you a second thought. I doubt you could get one to return you phone calls.
You can sneer at those who tell you to grow up and get a job, but you really ought to heed their advice, years from now you will be glad you did. Otherwise you will be another leech on society who cannot afford to buy his own kids socks, much less shoes.