The Stupid People Problem

By Rob Anderson – Anderson Valley Advertiser, May 30, 1990

If you attack stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every ‘walk of public life, and you will make small progress against it.

–Samuel Marchbanks

When we heard of the bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney’s car last Thursday, we admit to a brief moment of doubt: Perhaps, in their anger at the rape of the earth, Judi and Darryl, in contradiction of months of organizing and public statements, were actually carrying a bomb. But a moment’s reflection discounted the idea as preposterous. After months of meetings, promotion, and statements on nonviolence would Judi and Darryl risk the whole Redwood Summer—not to mention their future credibility with the environmental movement - to do a bombing? If so, what possible target could they find in the Bay Area to justify such a risk? We can imagine the conversation Judi and Darryl had as they loaded up the car in Ukiah:

[Judi]: “Say, why don’t we do a bombing while we’re in the Bay Area?        

[Darryl]: “Great idea! Where’s the bomb?”

[Judi]: “I think we left it under the bed.”

[Darryl]: “Here it is. I’ll just hook it up to the timer and put it in plain view—so we don’t forget it—behind the driver’s seat”

[Judi]: “That’s typical, Darryl. You’re too much of a wimp to put it behind your seat,”[1]

Ridiculous.

In any event, we waited with interest to learn what possible evidence the authorities—in this case, the Oakland Police Department and the FBI—thought they had to charge Darryl and Judi with transporting a bomb. Surely they had something, no matter how implausible. Their evidence to date, according to the Oakland police: “Based on our de­termination of the placement of the device in the car, we believe they should have known it was there. We believe it went off accidentally.” According to Bari’s attorney, Susan Jordan, this is all they have. In short, they have nothing—zip, zilch, nada. All they seem to know is that they have two radical environmentalists and a bomb explosion, so what other explanation can there be?

(The arrest of Bari and Cherney reminds us of the old joke about civil rights in the South: A car driven by a white man hits a black man walking by the side of the road, knocking him 20 feet from the point of impact. The police arrest the black man for leaving the scene of the accident).

What we had failed to account for in our mo­ment of doubt was the Stupid People Factor. Several weeks ago we wrote on the Nice People Problem about how many of our political opponents were “nice” on a personal level, yet somehow managed to engage in political and economic behavior that was not very nice at all.[2] “The Banality of Evil” was the phrase philosopher Hannah Arendt used to describe the damage ordinary people can do in certain situations.

Given the political context of the bombing and the history of death threats directed at the duo, you don’t have to be a lawyer to see the “evidence” against Judi and Darryl isn’t enough for a conviction, So what’s going on? When you can’t find any appar­ent reason for the actions of our political leadership and / or law enforcement agencies, it’s time to con­sider the Stupid People Factor—these people are often just plain dumb! It’s a mistake to give the au­thorities too much credit, to assume, as many Americans do, that the authorities know more than they’re letting on, that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. As often as not, they usually know and under­stand less than informed members of the public.

We don’t have to look far, to find examples of the Stupid People Factor at work in recent history. Vietnam springs to mind. Besides being waged with viciously destructive and immoral means—indiscri­minate bombing, aerial spraying of Agent Orange, anti-personnel bombs, napalm, etc.—the most re­markable thing about the US attack on Vietnam was its incredible stupidity, with no hope of victory short of the almost total extermination of the people of Vietnam. And we’re still paying the price with emo­tionally and physically disabled veterans, not to mention the lasting political damage the war did to the US in the world. (There’s no point in even rais­ing the matter of the damage: the war did to the country and people of Vietnam since the Stupid People never really cared about the Vietnamese in the first place. Stupid People are often more con­cerned with abstract concepts—Freedom vs. Com­munism, God, The Family, Country, Free Enter­prise, etc.—than they are with actual people).

But what about local examples of the Stupid People Factor? We literally don’t have enough space to list them all, since this is only a 12-page edition of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. But we have to men­tion a charter member of the local Stupid People club, District Attorney Susan Massini. Again, we don’t have space to go over all the cases she’s botched in the last four years (see “Susan Massini’s Greatest Hits,” Anderson Valley Advertiser, May 17, 1989 for a sampling), but every case which we have first-hand knowledge of has been screwed up by her office, either by not prosecuting cases that clearly should have been or prosecuting cases that shouldn’t be—or, once in court, screwing up a case due to poor preparation. Just a few local examples: the (Tony) Pardini case, the Rossi case, the prosecution of the Editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, the first Lipmanson pot case (aka, Lipmanson I), and the Ron Guenther case.

And the cases that weren’t pursued but should have been: the Chamberlain Creek cat killings, the attack on Mem Hill, the murder attempt against Judi Bari by the logging truck driver last summer, the PCB spill by Georgia-Pacific last year, the systematic breaking of the law by the Department of Social Services in its methodical attempt to discourage needy people from receiving public assistance, to name but a few.

And, of course, neither Tim Shea’s Sheriff’s Department nor Massini’s office have shown any interest in the many threats to Judi Bari’s life. This gives a green light to right-wing and/or timber psy­chos to threaten and attack Earth First!ers with im­punity. (The Anderson Valley Advertiser, by the way, recommends that, to protest her relentlessly reactio­nary and incompetent regime, you not vote for the supposedly non-partisan Republican Massini, though she’s unopposed on next week’s ballot. Leave that space blank on your ballot. Let the disparity in the total vote send a message of protest). And what have the District Attorney, the Sheriff, and the County Counsel been working on for several weeks to pre­pare the County for Redwood Summer? What else but a special ordinance to limit the size of picket sign handles this summer’s protesters will carry, since, as we know, picket sign handles are likely to be used by Earth First!ers as weapons to attack log­gers and cops, right? The proposed ordinance has been before the Board of Supervisors several times for solemn discussions on the technical nuances of drafting such a crucial bit of legislation. It’s due to come before the Board again at next week’s meeting. Perhaps, in light of the overwhelming importance and complexity or the sign handle problem, we’ll see the creation of a Sign Handle Task Force, com­posed of a cross section of the citizenry of Mendol­and, with all races, creeds, genders, geographical areas, sexual preferences, and occupations represented

The truly pathetic thing is, there may be enough Stupid People on the Board of Supervisors to pass the ordinance. District Attorney Massini, Sheriff Shea, and County Counsel Klein all apparently agree that such an ordinance is necessary. Space limita­tions require the omission of a discussion of other County agencies with similar leadership—the Men­docino County Office of Education and the Sheriff’s Department, for example. Regular readers of the Anderson Valley Advertiser already have an idea of similar problems elsewhere in official Mendoland…

Notes:

[1] It was shortly determined that the bomb had—in fact—been hidden under the driver’s seat, thus shattering any case that Bari and Cherney had been knowingly transported the bomb.

[2] “Nice People and the Banality of Evil”, Anderson Valley Adver­tiser, May 9, 1990.