How excitement! The Eugene Weekly has published the fourth installment of Kera Abraham’s series on anarchists in Eugene…
The dog’s barking punctuated a steady bang bang bang on the front door. It was 7 am, and Heather Coburn was not in the mood for this. She swung open the door to encounter dark-suited federal agents, who stoically informed her that they wanted to talk to her about her housemate, Jake Ferguson. When she refused, they flashed a search warrant and said they were going to tow her truck.
It was spring 2001, a peak time in Eugene’s eco-radical scene. The vandalism at the fall 1999 WTO protests, summarily blamed on “Eugene anarchists,” and the rowdy anti-establishment protests that followed — confrontations between black-clad anarchists and cops, broadcast by a pulse of locally based radical green media — had catapulted this damp little city to international infamy. Some of the more extreme [radical?] activists were calling for revolution against “Earth-raping” [Would “Earth-loving” be more appropriate?] corporations and the government by any means necessary, and a surge of arsons claimed by the Earth and Animal Liberation Fronts told the world that they were serious…
“Check back on December 21 for Part V : The Aftermath“. For previous installments, see : Careful With that Axe, Eugene.
