I CAN ONLY ASSUME THIS GUY’S A LIAR

On Dec. 15, 2007, I posted, DETRIMENTAL RELIANCE AS TACTIC TARGETING RANCHERS, on the blog. The post was about an article I stumbled upon in my research on wolves. A fellow named Gene Ladd had authored a book titled: AMBER WAVES OF GAIN. I found Mr. Ladd and his book at http://www.familyfarmer.org/awg13.pdf.
In this book, Mr. Ladd describes an incident he alleges occurred in 1999, in Santa Fe.

According to Mr. Ladd, the Minutemen placed a pipe bomb in the mailbox of the Forest Guardians and blew out the window of another environmental group with a shotgun.
I contacted the Santa Fe Police Department with Mr. Ladd’s story. A high ranking official of the Santa Fe PD, with 20 years service on the department said he didn’t recall such an incident. He surely would have remembered a pipe bomb placed in the controversial green organization’s mailbox.

Mr. Ladd went on to portray the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau as a militant organization intent on fueling anti-environmental hatred among ranchers. Mr. Ladd describes a training manual from the New Mexico Department of Public Safety that describes the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau as dangerous and capable of potential terrorist activities. Mr. Ladd goes on to claim the Farm Bureau pressured the New Mexico Department of Public Safety to withdraw the manual; which according to Mr. Ladd, the DPS did.

I sent Mr. Ladd’s allegations to the DPS headquarters in Santa Fe. Today I received a letter from the assistant director refuting Mr. Ladd’s claims and saying the incident never happened. The assistant director also said no such manual depicting the Farm Bureau as a terrorist organization was never printed.
I searched the FBI eco-terrorism records and found no such pipe bomb incident in Santa Fe in 1999.

Around the time all this was happening an individual who started a forest fire was arrested in Santa Fe county.

Mr. Ladd assigns the pipe bomb incident to this individual and places him as a member of the Minutemen. I asked Janet White, co-administrator of this blog and Minutemen member if she knew of this incident or the name I gave her. She did not. She gave the information to Bob Wright, Minutemen head honcho for New Mexico. He has the original roles of who signed up in the early days of the organization. Bob said the Minutemen did not exist in 1999 and the name of the guy Mr. Ladd says was a member is not on any of the roles. The guy arrested for the forest fire and Mr. Ladd’s terrorist was never a Minutemen member.

I can only opine that Mr. Ladd is a liar and a passionate if irresponsible green advocate who seeks to advance the green agenda at any cost. I think his book is either out of print, didn’t sell, or has been pulled from shelves. I couldn’t order it from Amazon, ebay or Half.com. The ‘farm’ website above still sells the hack job, but I declined to place an order. The night I stumbled upon the book was the night of my all night poker game and I needed my jar full of quarters and dimes. Sorry Gene, I won’t support a liar and a hack.