In this recently-rediscovered "Treasure from the KBOO Archives" from 25 years ago, a much younger Paul Roland offers a glimpse into the ecological consciousness and resistance movement, which emerged particularly strong in the Pacific Northwest, also known as Cascadia. Most of the interviews were done at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon Law School in Eugene, which had become one of the epicenters for cross-fertilization in this movement.
Interviews with:
-Bill Koethke (Kotke), originally from Prineville, Oregon; labor activist and participant in Bay area counterculture in the late 1960's, joined the back-to-the-land movement in the 70's; came to Portland in the mid-80's to finish his book "The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future." Also author of "Garden Planet: The Present Phase Change of the Human Species." Currently lives in an alternative community in southern Oregon. More info: http://www.rainbowbody.net/Finalempire/
WEB SITE: http://www.angelfire.com/
-Starhawk, writer, activist and major figure in Neopaganism. Her book "The Spiral Dance," one of the main inspirations behind the Goddess movement, has been widely influential, as have her many other works. She remains active in Reclaiming, a modern witchcraft tradition that she co-founded. She has also been a trainer in nonviolence and direct action for many years. For more information, see her Wikipedia entry, or http://starhawk.org/.
-Mike Roselle, co-founder in 1980 of Earth First!, also co-founded the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society. Mike participated in innumerable campaigns and actions and by his own account has been arrested over 50 times. He was involved early on in the NW forest protection movement and lived in Portland for a while in the mid-80's. He is the author of "Tree Spiker!" and has lived for several years in Rock Creek, West Virginia, where he is active in the struggle against Mountaintop Removal coalmining with Climate Ground Zero (http://climategroundzero.org/). You can also find him on Facebook.
Brian Willson, Vietnam veteran, peace activist and attorney. Willson helped create Veterans Education Project (VEP) in Massachusetts; Vietnam Veterans Peace Education Network (VVPEN) in New England; National Federation of Veterans For Peace (NFVFP) in 1986 in Washington, DC; Veterans Peace Action Teams (VPAT) in 1987, training and sending observation and work teams into Nicaragua and El Salvador, a project that lasted 3 years; Institute For the Practice of Nonviolence in 1988 in San Francisco. Willson was an early member of Veterans for Peace.[6]
On September 1, 1987, while engaged in a protest against the shipping of U.S. weapons to Central America in the context of the Contra wars,[2] Willson and other members of a Veterans Peace Action Team blocked railroad tracks at the Concord, CA Naval Weapons Station. An approaching train did not stop, and struck the veterans. Willson was hit, ultimately losing both legs below the knee.
He has remained active and has been living for several years in Portland, where he was involved with Occupy among other things. For more information, see his wikipedia entry or: http://www.brianwillson.com/
Liz May, an American-born Canadian environmentalist, writer, activist, lawyer, and politician currently serving as leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands. She was the executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada from 1989 to 2006. She started out as a grassroots activist in the 1970's and early 80's working against pesticide and herbicide spraying and uranium mining. After graduation from law school in 1983, she helped found the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund. See her Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_May or her homepage http://elizabethmaymp.ca/.
- KBOO