“Come warm your hands by our fire!”

While some eco-defenders in Oregon are getting worried about the chilling effect of proposed anti-activist legislation, others seem to have found a nice way of warming those liberties right back up… And really, who doesn’t love a burning effigy of their local politicians. It’s practically an American tradition. Apple pie, hot dogs, baseball, bureaucrats reduced to ashes.

It was reported in the Eugene Weekly like this:



When it comes to saving the environment, lawyers and protesters often go hand in hand, so it may come as no surprise that alongside (though not an official part of) the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the UO Feb. 28 to March 3, there were acts of protest.

The annual Outlaw Bash party and fundraiser tradition, as described by longtime environmentalist Michael Donnelly in an article inCounterPunch, is “music, libations and ever-popular bonfires of mock-ups of eco-destruction.” This year’s effigy burned in the fire featured Secretary of State Kate Brown and Gov. John Kitzhaber on their knees praying before a massive chainsaw emblazoned with “salvation” on one side and “Christihl” on the other (Stihl is a popular brand of chainsaw).

The effigy was a comment on Kitzhaber and Brown’s presence on the State Land Board that governs Oregon’s state forests and their vote to dramatically increase clearcut logging on the forests. The Elliott State Forest is home to some of Oregon’s last coastal rainforests, and it houses threatened and endangered species, such as the marbled murrelett.

But they do say a picture is worth a thousand words …