Training for the Front Lines
A mock confrontation

With the lessons on the inner workings of Earth First! still fresh in our heads, it was time to practice walking the talk we had just sat through. We paired up to act out a possible scene between a direct support person and a logger who has just arrived to find the road he takes to work blocked by protesters.

With his dread-locked hair and overalls decorated with Grateful Dead patches, Jay looked silly pretending to be an angry logger. I had to fight my funny bone from committing the sin against the Non-Violence Code that Sleeper had warned us about - laughing.

"What's going on here! What do you people think you're doing! Get out of the road, I've got to get to work."

I held up my arms and took a step back.

"I'm sorry sir, but we are protesting the MAXXAM Corporation's policies that are destructive to the environment. I hope you realize this is not directed toward you and it isn't our intention to harm you."

"But you are harming me. If I don't work today, my boss might fire me."

"If that's the case, you should probably call your boss and ask him what he thinks you should do. But we feel this protest is the only action to take to save the environment, so we plan on staying here as long as it takes."

Jay walked away for a minute and pretended to call his boss. "My boss told me I have to get you to leave and if I don't work today, I won't get paid. I really need the money, I've got a family to feed."

Even though it was just an act, I felt a little guilty. Keeping a man from supporting his family is a tough position to be in. But I continued telling him about our conviction to protest the clear-cutting of our forests until Cricket and Sleeper called for a stop to critique us.

Cricket told me it was good that I took a step back when Jay approached. Telling the logger that the protest wasn't against him and suggesting that he call his boss was also a good tactic. Distracting someone by getting them to involve more people is a good way to diffuse a confrontation before it escalates into violence, she said.

"Another thing you might want to mention to a logger is how MAXXAM works against them personally," Cricket said. "Tell them how the company robbed their pension funds when it bought Pacific Lumber or how clear-cutting reduces their job security."

Now it was Jay's turn to play the protester. He sat down and acted like he was one of the human roadblocks. I played the part of a cop coming to arrest him - a role I found easy to mimic after my confrontation with the Highway Patrol, earlier that morning.

"Excuse me son, but do you know that you are trespassing on private property?" Jay told me knew what he was doing but intended to sit out the protest. "Well I'm going to give you a minute to rethink your decision before I cuff you and take you to jail for breaking the law. Do you understand?"

He told me understood but still didn't budge. When a minute was up, I walked behind him and grabbed his arms and pretended to handcuff him. Jay sat there as I tried to lift him. Without fighting, he resisted the mock arrest by laying limp on the ground. Sleeper stopped us for another critique.

"I liked the fact that you didn't get up after he cuffed you," he said. " Sometimes protesters will even sit on their hands to make it more difficult for the cop to put them on." Sleeper said the only thing wrong with Jay's protest was that he admitted to breaking the law. "Who's law are you breaking anyway? At least the way I think, the ground is everyone's and no one can tell me I can't sit on certain parts of it."

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