By popular demand: Coleman's top 26 lies

Rank

The Lie

Pages where it appears

The Truth

1

Bari hurt the environmental cause by diverting money and attention to the FBI lawsuit.

232

Bari never diverted anything—she used the lawsuit as an organizing tool to build more support for Earth First!

2

Bari gave up Earth First! activism in favor of promoting herself and pursuing the lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland police.

207, 210. 208, 195

Bari was a dynamo of activist leadership in the last five years of her life, culminating in her leadership of the Campaign to Save Headwaters. See Instant Proof #1 and Instant Proof #12

3

Bari , Cherney and their supporters did nothing to try to solve the car bombing.

205, 228

Vigorous efforts to solve the crime began right after the bombing and continued unabated for the next 12 years, and timber and right-wing suspects were never eliminated from suspicion as Coleman claims.

4

Earth First! died after Bari 's death because she took energy away from it.

Book title, 229, 232

Earth First! surged to a new peak of activity after Bari 's death, inspired by her example, and Earth First! is very active today. See Instant Proof #2.

5

Redwood Summer was a failure that “sank without making much of an impression.”

196

Redwood Summer was a huge and dramatic event that succeeded in spreading public awareness about the forests. It had international coverage and was voted the top story of the year by the local newspaper.

6

Earth First! had a history of using or advocating explosives.

64, 66

There isn't a single incident where Earth First! was connected to use of explosives and all the writings by Earth First! leaders warn against it.

7

Redwood Summer was a deliberate attempt to provoke violence, and Bari and Cherney tried to provoke violence against themselves at the anti-abortion counte-demonstration in 1989 and at the Whitethorn blockade.

148, 124

There wasn't a single thing in the build-up, planning, publicity or leadership of Redwood Summer that countenanced anything except strict non-violent civil disobedience. Coleman contradicts herself by describing the meeting with loggers that Bari organized specifically to defuse the possibility of violence. Ditto for the other demonstrations—the only “provocation” was Bari 's courage to non-violently speak up.

8

Earth First! made a death threat against Maxaam's Charles Hurwitz in a poster about his corporate crimes.

138

Another outright lie attempting to smear EF! as violent. The poster wasn't any kind of death threat. See Instant Proof #14.

9

Bari wished for an earthquake to destroy San Francisco .

66 note

Obviously a joke made by Bari that Coleman pretends was serious. Elsewhere, Coleman acknowledges Bari 's self-admitted tendency to “flippancy” (p. 124), but Coleman won't recognize it whenever Bari 's words can be used to make her look bad.

10

Bari had fistfights with her “good” sister Gina right into adulthood.

19

They didn't like each other, but never had fistfights. This is part of Coleman's campaign to depict Bari as violent, when in fact Bari never fought except in rare instances in self-defense, none of them involving family.

11

Bari and Sweeney had a “secret war” over child custody.

61, 101, 164

Bari denied it, Sweeney denied it, there's no sign of it whatsoever in the court file on the divorce, and Bari 's practice of taking her daughters to Earth First! demonstrations, as noted by Coleman, shows she had no fear of any challenge to her fitness as custodial parent. See Instant Proof #7

12

Bari was physically abused by Sweeney and they had fist-fights.

42, 101

Bari denied it, Sweeney denied it, there's no evidence of it, and it defies reason to imagine that a karate-expert militant feminist like Bari would stay in a relationship where she was abused. It's just vicious gossip from two emotionally-unstable enemies of Bari —Anna Marie Stenberg and Mary Moore.

13

Sweeney constructed a mock-up of the bomb, implying he had the knowledge and ability to have built the original.

188

No such mockup was ever built, and the simple piece of pipe that inspires this lie was obtained by Susan Crane, not Sweeney, as documented by a letter from Crane and newspaper reports.

14

Sweeney revealed a connection to the arsonists who burned a Bank of America branch in 1970 in his article in Ramparts magazine.

29

The article did nothing of the kind. See Instant Proof #6.

15

Bari and Sweeney's leadership of a public campaign to control nuisance at a private airport included an arson attack.

41

Bari denied it (in writing), Sweeney denied it, there's no evidence, they were never named suspects, and it smacks of a typical smear on public protest leaders to accuse them of illegal acts. Bari and Sweeney succeeded in getting a halt to the permit violations by the airport.

16

Bari went drinking in bars and took speed.

97, 98

Bari never drank or used hard drugs in the last 20 years of her life. She did use marijuana and coffee, especially marijuana for pain after the bombing. In the last stages of her cancer she was given morphine.

17

Bari took advantage of her sister Gina, who wasn't a friend, to dump her daughters on her for long periods of time, including the entire summer after the bombing.

187, 190

A strange lie that seems to be intended to depict Bari as a shameless hypocrite who would take advantage of a sister who she supposedly had “fist-fights” with. But no such visits ever happened! See Instant Proof #5

18

Bruce Anderson offered Bari a gun for protection against Sweeney.

102

Anderson offered her a gun for protection against political threats, not Sweeney, as he stated to the Press Democrat 6/9/90 .

19

Bari asked a friend to ask the notorious Irv Sutley about having Sweeney killed.

129

Bari denied it, the friend denied it, and it's a perfect example of how an off-hand humorous jest can be twisted to smear Bari . Coleman herself puts the lie to this wild charge when she notes that Bari confessed to a habit of “flippancy.” [p. 124]

20

Bari used her fame for personal aggrandizement, buying a new car, getting the school district to put a new school next to her cabin, etc.

191,210

Bari bought a 3-year-old car after her Subaru was bombed, and she had nothing to do with the relocation of the neighborhood's one-room schoolhouse.

21

Bari stole money from donations and grants.

196, 197

All donations to the benefit fund were deposited in a bank and managed by trustees; there was no “fudging” on grant applications; Bari lived in near-poverty.

22

The verdict in Bari v. United States of America was “improbable,” was maiinly for false arrest and could be appealed.

207, 231

The jury was unanimous from the first day of deliberations; the case was overwhelming; the damages were mostly for defamation and violation of civil rights; and it can no longer be appealed.

23

Ex-friend and bitter enemy Anna Marie Stenberg should be listened to about Judi Bari.

34, 41, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98, 99, 101, 116, 123, 130, 137, 138, 140, 150, 158, 164, 168, 179, 180, 187, 188, 191, 195, 197, 208, 209, 210, 221

This is a woman who once accused her child-care competitors of engaging in Satanist child molestation rites, as Coleman admitted in her 2003 draft (p. 392) but left out of her published book. Stenberg is generally recognized in Mendocino County as having a history of pathological lying and imagining herself at the center of events. See documentation at Stenberg . Nothing at all that Stenberg told Coleman is accurate and most of it is fantasy.

24

Donald Foster is a real literary analyst who offered an objective opinion that Sweeney was the most likely author of a letter taking credit for the bombing.

221

Foster isn't a real analyst, he's a notorious fraud who had to admit his original claim to fame—the “discovery” that an anonymous poem was written by Shakespeare--was wrong, along with a host of other hoaxes. He conducted no scientifically valid analysis of writings around the Bari case, but just told Sutley and Gehrman what they wanted to hear. See Foster.

25

A few days before her death, Bari screamed at Sweeney to get off her property.

216

Three caregivers who were with Bari constantly during her last days confirm that no such incident ever happened.

26

Bari lied about a wealthy homeowner by criticizing him for using old growth redwood without mentioning that he deeded preservation of old growth trees on his property when he sold it.

57

A good example of Coleman's constant false allegations of dishonesty by Bari . Larry Chaulk's property wasn't sold until after Bari died, and there was no such deed restriction. See Instant Proof #3.