Bohemian Grove, Protests, and Rogue Cops
By Mary Moore

From Sonoma West -- July 12, 2007

About a month ago I started getting phone calls asking me about the planned July 22 protest at Bohemian Grove. Since I had made the decision last spring that after 28 years I wasn’t going to organize these protests anymore, I was confused until I realized that we still had last year’s announcement up on this website so that is why people were inquiring.

I took the old announcement down but then wondered what would happen if I’d let it stay. Would people still have shown up??

We’ll never know -- but perhaps it is time to explain my decision to quit organizing these annual protests. In 1980 when we began the protests, we were a single anti-nuclear group called SONOMoreAtomics, part of the statewide Abalone Alliance, and we decided to research the Grove membership list against those we knew to be profiting from nukes. We were still in our own learning curve about this secret retreat of the ruling elite and were very surprised when those humble efforts resulted in a national story by Jack Anderson that appeared in PARADE Magazine the following February. At that first protest we also attracted a reporter from MOTHER JONES, (Rick Clougher) who happened to be on vacation in Monte Rio and stopped by to see what we were doing.

Just a few hours before, a worker from the Grove with good politics had stopped by and told us that as a union steward he could get someone inside as a worker. This wonderful coincidence resulted in a national story that was published the next year during the 1981 encampment and is probably still one of the best exposes done on the Grove during the past three decades.

By 1983 we were a coalition of 78 groups across the country coming together as the BOHEMIAN GROVE ACTION NETWORK. This wasn’t because of us being such hotshot organizers but because of WHO the men were at this strange annual encampment in our backyard. We quickly realized that no matter what part of peace, justice or environmental issues we were involved in, the profiteers got together each year to celebrate them being them!!

During that first year we also established our own RESURRECTION OF CARE in response to their opening ceremony the CREMATION OF CARE. Over the ensuing years we put our focus on the annual LAKESIDE TALKS that are given twice a day as they make our point better than any words we could come up with. Topics such as STAR WARS, REARMING AMERICA, THE PERSIAN GULF CRISIS, OIL, NUCLEAR ENERGY, DEFINING A NEW WORLD ORDER, CHURCH STATE & THE CONSTITUTION, WHY AMERICA MUST LEAD, have been just some of the ideas floated by such men as ANTONIN SCALIA, HENRY KISSINGER, RICHARD NIXON, GEORGE H. W. BUSH, ADM. JAMES WOOLSEY, GEORGE SCHULTZ, DICK CHENEY, HELMUT SCHMIDT, PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN and other members and guests at the Grove.

These talks are a way for them to test public policy ideas without any public scrutiny. In short these men are the elite of the military, financial, governmental and corporate circles that run this country and are trying to run the world. This isn¹t hyperbole -- this is the way it is and most of you reading these words have reluctantly accepted that fact.

At age 72 (my birthday is Sat. July 14 when they will yet again be “CREMATING DULL CARE” in their bizarre annual opening ritual), I continue to keep up the website and answer inquiries that come in weekly from all over the place but it is time for someone else to organize the protests if they are to continue. There are so many issues out there keeping us busy (thanks to W and his Boho buddies) that there just may not be the energy to keep them going and while disappointing I¹ve made my peace with that. The information is now out there and the concept that so many of our SOCIAL ILLS are because of the PROFITS made from them is now accepted by most people. It wasn’t like that back in 1980 when the corporate influence on our government wasn’t well understood. That understanding is not because of our efforts but because people are paying attention to our domestic and foreign policies and whom they benefit.

As to where I’ll be on the weekend while the Bohos once again invade our community, it will not be in Monte Rio as it has been for so many years. I’ll be in Berkeley, along with many other Sonoma County people concerned about the growing militarization of local and national law enforcement. We’ll be attending a statewide COP WATCH conference to learn how police oversight will have to come from the people, not the politicians who claim to represent us. Because of the failure of the State Supreme Court (Copley decision) and the State Legislators (SB1019) we are going backward re: the availability to the public of the records of rogue cops.

So yes, it’s all connected and the struggle simply continues on another front.