Jeff “Free’ Luers March 23, 2008 Prison Dispatch

It is Easter Sunday, a rather strange celebration to me, after all it’s just another stolen pagan holiday. Yet, I am celebrating the return of spring; the stirring of new beginnings, new life, new hope, another chance. Spring is like a bright, beautiful sunrise after a long night. It brings a smile to my face and joy to my heart. It is a time for planting seeds and hoping they will take root and grow.


For me it is also a time of reflection, not that I really need an excuse; I’m locked up, so I have a lot of spare time for reflection. Still, most of the campaigns and direct actions I’ve participated in almost all started in spring.
Spring isn’t just for lovers it’s for revolutionaries!

My thoughts today, however, seem more focused on the past rather than looking ahead to the future. Though I suppose in a way it is both because as I sit here and recall our past struggles and victories, I worry that someday we’ll forget them.


I fear that we will forget who we are (or rather who we were), where we came from, and why. Recently it struck me that I’m becoming old guard in this struggle, still far from being an elder but certainly not a fresh voice. The many letters I get from those under 20 confirm this and I must smile at the innocent way they have of making a 29 year old feel old.


But that’s what I’ve been thinking about today, because it was just 10 years ago when I climbed that Douglas fir called “Happy” and thus began the Fall Creek/Red Cloud Thunder campaign, which blossomed and sprouted into so much more.


I look at today’s struggle and all that is happening and I realize we’ve moved on from what we once were: A natural process of growth.
But, I wonder if as a part of that process we’ve left behind who we are? Will we so easily forget the road blockades and tree sits, the roaming street battles, the deaths of David Chain and Carlo Guiliani along with numerous others? Ten or twenty years from now what will we remember of our struggles and sacrifices or even our failures?

I look at the lessons we failed to learn from the anti-war and civil rights struggles of the 60’s and 70’s in which I am just as guilty. I look at the warriors of these struggles, many of whom are still behind bars decades later still struggling for their beliefs and freedom, still struggling against the same opponent we struggle against today. When we fail to remember our past, we fail to learn from it. We invariably make the same mistakes and fall prey to the same government tricks.


Any student of social change or any well-schooled activist, who knows a bit of history, knows resistance comes in cycles. American history is full of examples.


The problem is that each time we recreate our struggle in a new image or under a new banner we really believe it is new. We fall prey to thinking that our struggle is somehow different from all those that have come before.


Twenty years from now I don’t care if I’m remembered, at least not as an individual. But what I do care about is that out struggle is remembered and not just by us. I care that we remember why we were in the streets battling cops and capitalism. I care that we remember why we used to risk our lives sitting in trees through bad weather and long winters. I care that we remember and honor the sacrifices of those warriors who give so much of themselves to remain underground and those that gave their freedom or their lives fighting.


These people and these movements represent you and I. They represent all that we have fought and struggled for and all that we believe. They are the embodiment of our movement, our heart and soul. For beyond theory and desire they are the dream and without them we have nothing.


Struggles reinvent themselves time and again (hopefully evolving). They are infused with the energy of youth, young idealists eager to take up the cause. This energy keeps us vibrant, it keeps us alive, but it does not keep us grounded. Only our collective past can do that.


It is easy to look past the sacrifices, the personal struggles, and to let the N30s, the Redwood Summers, the Genoa’s and Vail’s fade into blurry memories of another time. After all, the world hasn’t changed. Sadly, things haven’t gotten better.


But, these are the monuments to our struggle. They are testimonials to our determination and our passion. They speak of our courage and willingness to fight back. These are our movement’s triumph, if only for a little while, because for those brief moments in time we rose above tyranny and we chose to be free, we chose to fight.


It is not that we must never forget. It is that we must always remember. The struggle did not start with us, it will not end with us; this struggle is as much yours as it is mine, as much theirs as it is ours.


Hopefully, the seeds we have planted will become tomorrow’s ancient forests. May we always look on that with the reverence and respect deserved.


Jeffrey “Free” Luers
www. freejeffluers. org