Letters to the Editor

[December 17th, 2003] WHO'S THE PROVOCATEUR?

A year after he came down from his remarkable perch at the Forest Service building, Tre Arrow sought to block the destruction of an old-growth forest by clinging to a tree, 90 feet in the air. Below him, Clatsop County lawmen and timber-company agents sought to disorient him with bright lights and amplified sounds. Then they cut off the branches beneath him.

After two days and two nights, Tre dropped. Shattered, he survived.

Which brings me to the article by Carlton Smith ["Grooming an ELF," WW, Nov. 26, 2003]. While not disputing that there is "no evidence" to support the accusation, Smith casually observes that the "FBI's failure to apprehend Arrow might raise the question of whether he had a prior relationship with the agency."

Perhaps the explanation is FBI incompetence. (Now, there's a novel idea.) Perhaps the feds thought they would be better served with the charismatic Arrow on the run, rather than in the dock. Or perhaps they simply had more pressing concerns. Surely each of these possibilities is vastly more likely than the crackpot suggestion that Tre was an agent provocateur.

Did your ace investigative reporter mention to you that a provocateur is usually the guy who doesn't get charged? Or that the point is to use some impressionable youth to set up a person of prominence, rather than the other way around?

Who is really serving the forces of reaction? I suggest it is the author, who--like John Ashcroft--calls monkeywrenching "eco-terrorism." Carlton Smith, who sees a man who went out on a ledge for what he believed in, and tries to paint him as a sneak and a coward.

Is it not enough that Tre Arrow must fear that every noise in the night might be men with guns, coming to get him? Now he must wonder if those to whom he has entrusted himself may yet betray him, believing the lie that he has signed John Ashcroft's black book.

Surely all of you at Willamette Week think of yourselves as dwelling on a higher moral plane than the tree-shaking cretins of Clatsop County. Perhaps you should think harder.

Gregory Kafoury
Southwest Stark Street

Editor's Note: Kafoury has served as Tre Arrow's attorney.

SCRUBBED BETWEEN THE EARS

I'm vegan. I don't wear shoes all the time. I don't shave. I don't shower every day. I even want to protect the Earth.

I must have been brainwashed by Tre Arrow.

I've only met Arrow once or twice, and he didn't seem all that exciting at the time, but by golly, that's the only reason I would act so freakishly and deserve the contempt of wise journalists like those at the Willy Week ["Grooming an ELF," WW, Nov. 26, 2003]. Certainly my outward appearance and my political views mean I must have been seduced into some radical cult.

Of course these signs could not mean that I have simply rejected the prior brainwashing by the society that tells me to eat meat, wear shoes, shave, bathe daily, and abuse the planet that gives me life. The society that punishes standing up for one's beliefs by destroying property more than actually harming other people or animals or trees.

The society that equates self-destructive cults and political action groups. The society that doesn't use the opportunity of Jake Sherman's unfortunate prosecution as a chance to reexamine its system of justice.

Well, if it was Tre Arrow who taught me these things--if I didn't just realize them on my own because I am a compassionate, rational human being--then I guess I owe him thanks.

Audrey DeCoursey
Southeast 21st Avenue

THE THRONE BEHIND THE POWER

Hurray to "The Nose" [WW, Nov. 26, 2003] for its comments on Neil Goldschmidt, but let's tell it without the smoke screen. While it shouldn't be denied that Neil Goldschmidt did some good things for this city and state in the 1980s and 90s with his smooth-talking, that doesn't begin to negate his horrible dealings in the new millennium: major proponent for the destruction of what's left of the historic core of downtown PDX to make way for his lame-brained South Park Blocks expansion proposal (because the existing park blocks are overused? NOT!); representative for dangerous Pacific Northwest nuclear-power facilities, in search of suckers/careless, greedy capitalists who'll run/buy them; and now--the icing on the cake--front man (and nothing more than that) for the group from Texas (Texas Pacific Group) that hopes to buy PGE so they can keep rates artificially high to pay stockholder dividends and over-inflated salaries to liars such as CEO Peggy Fowler. What a joke.

Wake up, Portland. Neil should step out of his gas-guzzling SUV long enough to realize he's become a caricature of everything many of us Oregonians disdain so much: a hypocritical, money-grubbing politico opportunist hack. All Portlanders should pay more attention to "consultants" such as Goldschmidt who'd sell us, our power, safety, future and jobs to the highest bidder so they can trade up to a more massive mansion, larger bank account and bigger SUV. We should all tell City Commissioner Eric Sten and Mayor Katz to continue to move to condemn PGE so that, through establishment of a PUD, the city can install adequate, fair-salary upper management.

Such a move would guarantee sound operations, decrease overinflated electricity rates for everyone, and ensure full employment for the 2,700 or so existing PGE employees who provide our energy. In addition, a city-owned PUD would likely result in increased clean energy production and a higher commitment to nonprofit community endeavors as well as a more independent, stable Willamette Valley.

That's bad for business? How? It's time for all of us to tell the liars and truth distorters where to shove it.

Shame on you, Neil and Peggy. You and your dealings smack of corruption with a capital "C."

Christian Gunther
Northwest Portland

PGE LIKES THE DARK

The Nose's article that made a plea for transparency [WW, Nov. 26, 2003] isn't likely to be taken seriously by anybody that makes a difference. They are a private company, and being "transparent" isn't in their best interest. So they won't be. The only reason you'd hire someone who was legendary for making inside deals would be so they make more inside deals--not transparent by definition.

What has me baffled is why they'd want PGE. With the kind of returns they'd expect, they're not trying to get into the electric-utility business. So what is it they get with PGE that makes it worth $2 billion?

Maybe it has something to do with an idle Trojan plant that could make a huge amount of money if it were just running. Or maybe it has something to do with PGE's direct connection and rights to access the BPA lines. I'd say you could spin off a separate generating and transmission company and sell it, and still have an electric utility company after the sale. If Trojan was profitable at the electric rates in effect when it was built, think what it could do now.

Doug Morse
Southwest 42nd Avenue