Author: earthfirst

It has been two weeks since the jury found Eric guilty, and we are still try­ing to regroup and get ready for the next round. While this is going to be a long process – one which will require your help and sup­port in a vari­ety of ways – there is one thing that sim­ply can­not be put off.

The jail is still deny­ing Eric veg­an food. After endur­ing a two-week hunger strike in March 2006, Eric was final­ly giv­en veg­an meals on April 24, 2006. This last­ed for 15 full months. Then, with­out any warn­ing or rea­son­able expla­na­tion, the jail cut off Eric’s veg­an meals one week before his tri­al began. Since that time, he has been sur­viv­ing off the few options he can pur­chase from com­mis­sary (peanut but­ter, beans, chips…) and the lit­tle food he can pull off of the meal trays they bring him (usu­al­ly bread and fruit – some­times oat­meal in the morn­ing). Clear­ly, this is not enough to con­sti­tute a healthy, bal­anced diet. It is the jail’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide Eric with the food he needs to remain healthy and strong. This is obvi­ous­ly some­thing they are com­plete­ly able to do, as they did so for 15 months with no prob­lems.

Eric has been con­tem­plat­ing what cours­es of action are open to him in this mat­ter, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, his options have become even more lim­it­ed. The suit that Eric filed against the jail to secure veg­an meals was dis­missed by the judge, great­ly dimin­ish­ing any hope he had for redress in the courts. A hunger strike could be extreme­ly risky due to the bout of peri­cardi­tis for which he was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal in April. It is unclear whether his heart could han­dle the strain a hunger strike would put on his body – he could quick­ly end up back in the hos­pi­tal, poten­tial­ly with a VERY seri­ous heart con­di­tion.

Because Eric’s options are so lim­it­ed, in the jail and in the courts, he needs sup­port from the out­side more than ever. This seems to be the only hope for change. In the mean­time, Eric con­tin­ues to lose weight, and his health will soon begin dete­ri­o­rat­ing. Please call the jail imme­di­ate­ly and request that Eric be giv­en veg­an meals…again. When you call, be pre­pared to sit through a lot of ring­ing and pos­si­bly trans­fers. The per­son who made the deci­sion to cut off Eric’s food before tri­al is Lt. Ilg, and the per­son who over­sees him is Scott Jones. Feel free to request to speak to either of these peo­ple when call­ing the jail.

It’s always help­ful to have Eric’s x‑reference num­ber handy when call­ing the jail, in case the per­son you are speak­ing with asks for it. Eric’s x‑ref is: x‑2972521. You can call the jail at :

916–874-6752
916–874-6905

Below are some things you might sug­gest while talk­ing to the jail:

1)The jail fed Eric veg­an food for 15 months with no prob­lems. There is no rea­son they can­not con­tin­ue to do so.

2)The jail is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing Eric with a healthy diet. Eric has made it clear that he will not eat food that is not veg­an. As such, they will be respon­si­ble for any health prob­lems that Eric suf­fers due to his lack of nutri­tion.

3)The jail can­not claim they are unable to pro­vide Eric with veg­an food due to asso­ci­at­ed costs. This is sim­ply false. The jail is paid thou­sands of dol­lars by the feds to house fed­er­al inmates (such as Eric). They are prof­it­ing from Eric’s incar­cer­a­tion (and let’s face it, veg­an food is sim­ply cheap­er to begin with…)

In an affi­davit filed with the court in March 2006, Eric wrote, “…my veg­an beliefs and moral­i­ty are ani­mat­ed by the way of liv­ing which shows a respect for all life, rec­og­niz­ing the rights of liv­ing crea­tures; extend­ing to them the com­pas­sion and kind­ness exem­pli­fied toward peo­ple. It is a tru­ly eth­i­cal rela­tion­ship between humans and oth­er liv­ing crea­tures. My veg­an lifestyle is based upon my own health and my own eth­i­cal and moral under­pin­nings which I have arrived at con­sci­en­tious­ly and I am firm­ly con­vinced it is the right and appro­pri­ate way to live. It is health­i­er for me and the plan­et I live on. It is as sin­cere­ly held to me as oth­ers hold their own reli­gious beliefs.” Through­out his time in the Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, Eric has main­tained his integri­ty and resolve to live his life in the most eth­i­cal and com­pas­sion­ate way pos­si­ble. Let’s do our part to sup­port him and ensure that he does not suf­fer for doing so. Please call the jail and request that Eric be giv­en veg­an meals imme­di­ate­ly. And then call again, and again, and again – until this sim­ple demand is met.

Last­ly, thanks to an out­pour­ing of sup­port, Eric is cur­rent­ly very well off on books. At this point, he’s ask­ing that peo­ple please hold off on send­ing any addi­tion­al books until he’s able to get through the ones he cur­rent­ly has. We will post an update as soon as he’s able to receive more. As far as finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, the best way to con­tribute to Eric is to donate to his legal defense; we are prepar­ing to file an appeal and need to raise funds as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. We are cur­rent­ly able to cov­er Eric’s com­mis­sary needs. Thank you again for keep­ing Eric in your thoughts and doing so much to help him through this very dif­fi­cult time.

Let­ter from Eric 10/5/07
Dear friends,

Below is a let­ter from Eric. We want to keep this short, and leave you with his words, but just a quick note: last night Mark filed a 28-page motion for a new trial/to acquit based on the errors made through­out the tri­al. Most of these have been dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous alerts and court reports, with the excep­tion of one. When the court issued it’s answers on Thurs­day morn­ing to the ques­tions the jury asked Wednes­day after­noon, the judge told the jury not to write down the answers, as the jury would be issued a type-writ­ten response upon their return to the jury room. The answer giv­en to the first ques­tion in court (whether or not Anna was a gov­ern­ment agent in August 2004) was an unequiv­o­cal “yes.” How­ev­er, the answer giv­en to the jury upon their return to the delib­er­a­tion room was a type-writ­ten “No.” This clear­ly could have had alarm­ing impacts on the ver­dict they decid­ed upon in Eric’s case…

A let­ter from Eric…

i’ve been told that my con­duct has been seen by some as inspi­ra­tional, i’m grate­ful to be able to pro­vide a source of strength to those in my fam­i­ly who find them­selves in a time of need — more so as being a part of their process of growth and self cre­ation… but my behav­ior is, in a sense, self­ish­ly borne — my intent orig­i­nates from a per­spec­tive which encom­pass­es my fam­i­ly and their future gen­er­a­tions… though, the term “fam­i­ly” i don’t uti­lize in a con­ven­tion­al or every­day sense — the bub­ble has expand­ed beyond the cus­tom­ary… it holds with­in it the micro and macro, all those with whom i have shared that mut­ed and unblink­ing stare of under­stand­ing — be it on the streets, at a skill­share or class, con­cert, speech or march, ral­ly, home-demo or a real­ly free mar­ket — at a con­ver­gence cen­tre, library, camp­site, crit­i­cal mass, on an on-ramp, along­side of a high­way, at a rest stop, from a train, in a for­est, a city park or square, or at a stream, riv­er, lake, hot-spring or beach… this bub­ble also includes each and every one of those indi­vid­ual places — unique unto them­selves in appear­ance, local­i­ty, time and energy/personality ~ as well as the non-humyn inhab­i­tants there­in, who aid in the con­tin­u­al self-cre­ations of those envi­ron­ments… keep­ing that self­ish­ness close to my Heart and mind is some­thing i aim for — know­ing that all my life i have been con­di­tioned by our soci­ety to the con­trary… dur­ing my ten days of “dis­ci­pli­nary iso­la­tion” last fall an idea made itself known to me ~ it was to cre­ate with that which is pro­vid­ed, not nec­es­sar­i­ly to its par­tic­u­lar pur­pose, but to my own… this includes the pain which resides with­in my Heart due to the sep­a­ra­tion between us… i’ve come to see ener­gy as the most mal­leable aspect of this real­i­ty, and the emo­tions that surge through our bod­ies can be uti­lized for any num­ber of means and ends… pain­less stag­nant can fes­ter into hate and reac­tion — but uti­lized with a con­scious and open intent it could nur­ture the cat­a­lysts required to move through our thresh­olds… hate is the death of joy and reac­tion is noth­ing more than uncon­scious reflex brought about by a cer­tain stim­u­lus (per­ceived or not) which induces pre­dictable respons­es — in most cas­es, con­ced­ing to the terms and def­i­n­i­tions of the ini­tia­tor, allow­ing the stim­u­lus to have affect, sig­ni­fies it’s suc­cess… con­scious cre­ations with the cycles of growth and health do not fit into the matrix of cause and effect — their qual­i­ties and forms flow through the rigid struc­tures that seek to encap­su­late, reform, define… … i object to being pigeon­holed (phys­i­cal­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly) by cleav­ing to some mar­shal or war­rioresque mantra that many have cho­sen when con­front­ed with sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances — what they chose is for their own per­son­al path, what they’ve per­ceived as nec­es­sary for their sur­vival… from where i stand, it feels that if i fol­lowed that train of thought i would be adher­ing to a path too well-worn ~ and don’t get me wrong, i hon­or and respect those that have come before me who con­tin­ue to adhere to the wis­dom in their hearts, but those known trails can also be used by oth­ers that have scout­ed them for weak­ness­es ~ if expe­ri­ence has taught me any­thing, it’s been to stick to the deer trails or cre­ate my own… anoth­er of my recent lessons has been to rec­og­nize the benef­i­cent qual­i­ties of shape-shift­ing, as defined by ter­ry tem­pest williams = “this has noth­ing to do with incon­sis­ten­cy. it has to do with seiz­ing the moment, per­ceiv­ing what is nec­es­sary in that moment … know­ing what each occa­sion demands, and stand­ing our ground in the places we live…” … but this is nei­ther the time nor the place to ful­ly delve into such things, for this let­ter has anoth­er intent… … … through­out this expe­ri­ence i have been in awe of the lov­ing sup­port giv­en by fam­i­ly, known and unknown from around the coun­try and the world, who have nour­ished me dur­ing this part of my jour­ney ~ i’ve received such an inun­dat­ing amount of mail that i haven’t been able to respond to it all ~ there is no con­cept that can ade­quate­ly express my thanx and appre­ci­a­tion to you all… … to all of those unknown and unnamed beau­ti­ful indi­vid­u­als who have aid­ed me on this case, i am impa­tient­ly wait­ing to thank you prop­er­ly with a huge hug… … chris­tine, i haven’t for­got­ten about the veg­an din­ner i promised… … to my coun­sel mark, who’s exper­tise in his field is unques­tion­able — his abil­i­ties, pas­sion, and deter­mi­na­tion pro­vide a well­spring of strength, espe­cial­ly know­ing that he con­tin­ues to fight for me — as he said on the 27th “it’s only the open­ings of the third quar­ter” ~ the notion of grat­i­tude does­n’t begin to encom­pass the feel­ing in my heart, my friend, much love… … to jed, my investigator/case manager/Elder, your ener­gies vest­ed into this case have been the bedrock of ground­ed explo­ration, bal­anc­ing the some­times fren­zied and bois­ter­ous antics that accom­pa­ny markus’ high ener­gy nature, thank you my friend… … i’d also like to thank bob, my first inves­ti­ga­tor, for his time, com­pa­ny and aid work­ing on the hours upon hours of tran­scripts with me over that first sum­mer (which my part­ner and sis­ter painstak­ing­ly gleaned from the shock­ing­ly abhor­rent qual­i­ty of fbi record­ings)… … the actions and aid of sac pris­on­er sup­port have and con­tin­ue to tran­scend any and all of my ideas con­cern­ing pris­on­er sup­port groups and have been mon­u­men­tal in this expe­ri­ence on every con­ceiv­able front — too much love… … the Love, Sup­port, and Under­stand­ing of my Par­ents and Sis­ters goes beyond scope, sim­i­le, and metaphor — i Love you all … … and i Feel and Know in my Heart, Body, and Soul that my sur­vival has been impact­ed to an inex­press­ible degree by the Love and Sup­port of my Part­ner ~ and the inter­twin­ing of Our Paths has brought a Depth and Qual­i­ty of Life i had nev­er before imag­ined to exist — my Thanx tran­scend lan­guage and my Love, only a Begin­ning… … …

my Thanx and Love 2 U All

This is far from Over

D

find your joy

More info at http://www.supporteric.org/
More info on the Green Scare at http://greenscare.org/