I finally purchased a copy of the CD that has this historic song on it,
written and performed by Darryl Cherney, and sung in court one day at the
behest of the Defendants. }:-}

The CD is from http://www.darrylcherney.com/ and it's on the "They Sure
Don't Make Hippies Like They Used To" CD. The cover of the CD is a bit
different than the one I remember from the trial <snicker> but this one
is just as good: A man and a woman -- presumably Judi Bari and Darryl
Cherney -- walking away from a Caterpillar tractor burning in the
background, the woman holding a can of gasoline, the man a huge monkey
wrench -- symbology extracted from the Edward Abbey book, "Monkeywrench
Gang" and "Hayduke Lives!" of course.

The other CD which doesn't have "Spike A Tree for Jesus" on it that just
came in is "TIMBER!" which shows a town with Maxxam, Exxon and what not
in the background and a power line falling with sparks and in the
foregroup is a beaver grinning and yelling "TIMBER!" <rofl!> More of
the same kind of symbology.

When Darryl Cherney was being questioned during the lawsuit against the
FBI for their COINTELPRO activities in the Judi Bari / Darryl Cherney
bombing case (Bari and Cherney were the plaintiffs, the FBI and the
Oakland PD were the defendants) the record cover with the falling power
line pole was brought up by the defense, and so was the song "Spike a Tree
for Jesus" among others.

The FBI/OPD defense lawyer tried to make much of the record cover and
tried to make it look like Earth First! was some bomb-throwing terrorist
cult. When the power line pole record cover was brought up, Cherney
smiled and said, "By beaver, yeah" which got everyone including most of
the jury chuckling.

The defense continued to try to depict Earth First! as some how violent
-- despite the laid-back, flower-throwing hippie behavior they had all
exhibited all through the trial (the people observing from the seats,
that is) so he brought up some songs like, "The Balad of the Lone Tree
Spiker" and "This Monkeywrench of Mine" and, of course, "Spike a Tree
for Jesus."

The plaintiff lawyer then was given a chance to cross Darryl and so he
asked Darry if he would like to sing one of his songs for the jury. The
defense objected, knowing that the contents of the song itself wouldn't
support the outrageous image he was trying to paint the EF! people with.
The Judge ruled that defense had opened the issue so of course the
plaintiff would allow it. (Defense had hoped that the title of the song
with the word "Jesus" in it would be enough to make jurists believe the
song was anti-Christian. He didn't count on the plaintiff suggesting
that Darryl sing one of his songs, exposing the actual words which would
debunk the defense's claims and allusions.)

So plaintiff was given the choice of which song to sing. Darryl was
wearing a nice business suit -- probably stolen <rofl!> kidding -- and
he reached back behind him and brought out his guitar and hung it around
and started tuneing up.

The court room was absolutely silent and damn near everyone in the room
was leaning forward, eyes wide, waiting to see not only what the song
was that he was going to select, but what the mysteriously "radical" or
"criminal" words were -- and to see if Darryl was any good.

When the rythem for "Spike a Tree for Jesus" began, there was a bit of
a collective sigh from the hippies in the seats, and when the song was
done, the jury was in love with Darryl and were wondering why the defense
had brought the subject of the music up. Some of the jurists considered
the song to be mildly about Christianity but the idea behind the song was
that if trees had been spiked 2000 years ago, the logs used to string
him up would never have been cut, ergo Jesus would approve of tree spiking.

In 2002 the case was found in favor of Judi Bari (who died in 1997 from
cancer, something that was perhaps the result of the bombing) and Darryl
Cherney. At issue was the FBI's attempt to silence EF!'s freedom of
speech rights, something that the evidence overwhelmingly shows the FBI and
the Oakland PD deliberately engaged in.

Incidentally, what wasn't so clear was whether COINTELPRO is still an
active, funded program of the FBI. The Church Committee supposedly put an
end to the FBI's criminal activities however the bombing of Judi and Darryl
yielded such evidence in the aftermath that if COINTELPRO _was_ ended, then
there's an even greater mystery behind the FBI's behavior before and after
the bombing.

---
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