William C. Rodgers

William Rodgers is a redirect to this article. For other people, see Bill Rodgers .

William C. Rodgers (also known under the pseudonym Avalon , * 1965 - December 21, 2005 in Flagstaff ) was an American bookseller and eco-activist.

Life

He grew up in upstate New York . In the mid-1980s, he enrolled at a college in Rochester for a Reserve Officer Training Corps program , but left the training after a few months. Rodgers then attended Prescott College in Prescott , Arizona . There his interest in activism and environmental civic participation intensified and he took part in Earth First! in Idaho and other western US states . Together with his partner Katie Rose Nelson, he founded the Catalyst Infoshop and Bookstore in Prescott in 2003 . This was mainly a center for the dissemination of information and the elaboration of and dealing with topics related to environmental, nature and animal protection. A variety of community events were also organized at the social meeting point, such as a high school girls' club, knitting courses, philosophical discussion groups and courses on sustainable living. Numerous artists also appeared.

On December 7, 2005, Rodgers was arrested along with five fellow activists as part of the FBI operation "Backfire". Investigators accused him of being involved in the June 1998 arson at the National Wildlife Research Center in Olympia , Washington , which the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is charged with. In addition, he would have attended a conspiratorial meeting of the ELF in western Colorado , where the arson attack on a ski resort in Vail , Colorado, was supposed to have been planned. The FBI accused him of being a criminal mastermind and mastermind and the anonymous author of Setting Fire with Electrical Timers, an Earth Liberation Front Guide . This paper explains in great detail the construction of an unconventional detonation and incendiary device known as the "cat's cradle". According to their own statements, after this guidebook was published and circulated, the authorities were no longer able to judge with certainty which arson attacks in the ELF cell around Rodgers could and in which not.

On December 21, 2005, Roders committed suicide in his prison cell by pulling a plastic bag over his head. He sent his farewell letter to numerous friends:

"To my friends and supporters to help them make sense of all these events that have happened so quickly: Certain human cultures have been waging war against the Earth for millennia. I chose to fight on the side of bears , mountain lions , skunks , bats , saguaros , cliff rose and all things wild. I am just the most recent casualty in that war. But tonight I have made a jail break - I am returning home, to the Earth, to the place of my origins. Bill, 12/21/05 (the winter solstice .) "

"I have not departed. I have merely changed form. With or without me, the resistance grows stronger everyday. "

Rodgers had continued influence on the scene and on various anarchist and militant ecological movements even after his death . Several actions were carried out posthumously on his behalf, such as the theft of 28 beagle pups from the Facultad de Veterinaria of the Autonomous University of Madrid by the Animal Liberation Front and the arson at a construction site in Guelph , Ontario , in January 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erica Ryberg: Bill the Cat Heads Home ( Memento from August 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) , 2006 on nocompromise.org . Retrieved November 24, 2013.
2. ↑ Suspect in ecoterror case found dead , on 22 December 2005 on denverpost.com ( The Denver Post ). Retrieved November 24, 2013.
3. ↑ Terry Breverton: Immortal Last Words. History's Most Memorable Dying Remarks, Deathbed Statements and Final Farewells . London 2010, ISBN 978-1-848-66085-4 .
4. ↑ Randall Amster: Anarchism Today . Santa Barbara 2012, ISBN 978-0-313-39872-8 , page 78.
5. ^ Book presentation by Bron Taylor: Dark Green Religion. Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. , on brontaylor.com . Retrieved November 24, 2013.