Earth Day came and went yesterday with little more than a whimper. Everyone seems to have forgotten it. The celebrations are no more, no one sent me an Earth Day card, and it hardly registered a blip in the media or on the blogometer. I remember Earth Days past when we went to the park with our dogs and kids, ate barbecue and played disc golf, but that was long ago and it's a new world now for most of us.
Yet for some it seems to be Earth Day every day, especially for ecoterrorists like Earth First, the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. These folks are bent on setting the Earth free, and apparently the way to do that is through terrorizing children, beating and maiming middle class suburbanites, destroying pirvate property and personal reputations, and mailing bombs to scientists. This all sounds like great fun - and a quick route to a long jail term - but is it really a good way to win supporters to your cause? Apparently it may be, if there are people out there as crazed and obsessed as the members of these groups, and judging from some of their websites their activities and their ambition are growing, and hardcore would-be ecoterrorists are becoming a threat which might rival Al Quaeda and its allies before most of the public is even aware that they exist.
Some of these groups are circumspect about their crimes and others proclaim them proudly on their websites. Although Earth First is notorious for spiking trees and killing or wounding lumbermen, their website claims that they don't engage in that sort of activity anymore. A memo from a few years ago says they won't endorse tree spiking but that they still give their tacit support, saying:
- "We will not condemn tree-spiking, unless of course it is a completely inappropriate spiking by anyone's standards. It is completely understandable that someone would still spike trees especially after walking through a few clearcuts. Our position will be to ask for no future spikings; not to condemn what might be a logical act from someone's forlorn point of view."
Not surprisingly, trees are still getting spiked, ironically raising the ire of the Wobblies of all people, who report extensively on one of the most gruesome tree spiking injuries in which a logger was almost decapitated. Of course, Earth First continues to publish its various booklets on how to spike trees and cause other mayhem. In fact, they've moved from using metal spikes which can be found with a metal detector to ceramic and concrete spikes. Plus, spikes in trees stay there forever. Who knows how many have yet to do their damage? Tree spikes have caused 3 documented deaths and scores of major and minor injuries.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - MDE
Dave - Excellent Sunday morning read(s). Great sourcing. Stepping into territory where 'the ends justify the means' opens any movement (including the neocons - the 'terrorists' currently in power) to common sense criticism.
Are there up-to-date estimates of numbers in these groups?
Mark
2 - MDE
One critique of style:
I suggest that you replace:
"By most expert estimates it's only a matter of time ..."etc - an unsubstantiated statement, leading the argumentative reader to think about those experts who estimate otherwise rather than the thrust of your article,
with:
"Experts estimates that it's only a matter of time ..."etc - a substantiated statement.
Mark
3 - MDE
Sorry about the extra 's' above. Mark
4 - Aaman
Earth Day was 'celebrated' by a leading erotica site - literotica.com had an interesting contest for Earth Day.
Sex as an answer to violence - hmmm.
5 - LJP
This retard a memebr of ProtestWarrior? Go play with your stupid Star Wars toys, geek!
6 - Dave Nalle
LOL Aaman. I actually miss EarthDay a lot. That sort of positive pursuit of environmental goals seems so nice in comparison to the evil of groups like the ELF.
LJP - What's ProtestWarrior?
Dave
7 - Dave Nalle
Never mind, LJP, I found their website. Sure, consider me a member if you like. They appear to be a group with a sense of humor which organizes counter-protests against socialist groups. I've got no problem with them expressing free speech on a rational subject like that.
Oh, and they have a fantastic poster I'm positively in love with. Check out this sign - best commentary on school vouchers I've seen yet.
And BTW, from what I can tell they aren't Republican ideologues, just anti-socialists. At least a couple of their signs and bumper stickers poke fun at Republicans as well as democrats.
You, of course, being a humorless leftist, probably hate and fear them.
Dave
8 - Temple Stark
Sensationalist headlines suck.
9 - Dave Nalle
Hell no, Temp. This isn't your mainstream media, this is blogland - sensationalist headlines kick ass. And I'm a big fan of the Weekly World News too.
Dave
10 - Victor Plenty
ECOTERRORISTS FREE BAT BOY FROM SECRET ARMY LAB!
Like that, Dave?
11 - SFC SKI
He knows too much, and must be silenced.
12 - HW Saxton
The fact that Peter Bagge does a weekly
comic strip of "Batboy" in the W.W.News
will keep me as a regular reader. It is
a pretty entertaining mag when the brain
just craves junk food.
13 - Dave Nalle
Exactly, Victor. If only we could get the ALF to focus on helping out Bigfoot and Batboy we'd be much better off.
Dave
14 - RJ
I have certain sympathies with the pro-animal and pro-environment movements. I love nature too, and am disgusted with the rampant pollution and/or destruction of our lakes, rivers, and oceans.
HOWEVER, these fringe lunatics need to be punished severely for their violent criminal activities. If you love animals and nature, why would you harm a fellow human being? We are just another species of animal, after all, and are therefore a part of nature...
15 - Dave Nalle
To quote Orwell - "four legs good, two legs bad".
That's about the size of it.
Dave
16 - jadester
indeed. Those ecoterrorists who genuinely believe in their cause (i.e. who aren't in it for other reasons) must be too stupid to realise it's exactly that kind of extremism that puts their cause ata disadvantage.
And they risk getting all of us who care about the environment a bad name.
17 - Maurice
jadester - you are right on the money. When people claim there is a 'hole' in the ozone layer over antartica they make other (valid) claims about the environment have less validity.
We should be concerned about the enviornment but we should deal in facts, not exagerations.
18 - Dave Nalle
Hell, even I care about the environment - I like air and water as much as the next fellow. In fact, one of the biggest groups concerned about the environment is hunters, because if there's no wildlife left there's nothing for them to kill.
What the econazis don't get is that the environment is meaningless without humans here to appreciate and use it. When you go off the deep end into the mentality that lab rats and humans have the same civil rights you're no longer someone anyone can have a rational discussion with. Maybe that's why they turn to terrorism - no one sane would listen to them when they tried talking about their beliefs.
Dave
19 - JR
Dave Nalle: What the econazis don't get is that the environment is meaningless without humans here to appreciate and use it.
Actually, just you. When you die, the rest of us and the universe will suddenly become superfluous and flash out of existence.
20 - Dave Nalle
Is that J.R. or perhaps J.P. as in J. P. Sartre?
dave
21 - SFC SKI
Does that mean we all live inside Dave's predatory electric head or is Dave the incarnation of Brahmin, and we inhabit his dream?
22 - Big Time Patriot
Well, I don't like terrorists of any kind, even the ones the administration supports (The Bush Family's Favorite Terrorist http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042405.html ).
But comparing Earth Day to support of Ecoterrorism is like comparing Valentines day to the support of wife battering, or comparing Christmas to supporting David Koresh...
The fact that terrorists support something does not make that thing inherently bad, does it? When the contras were blasting people away in the name of anti-communism, did that make anti-communism bad?
I don't mind your main point about the eco-terrorists, but I bet there are still some people out there planting trees and cleaning up parks this Earth Day (I know there were some locally) and it doesn't help your point to lump those doing some good with those doing evil. Even if they use the same justification it doesn't make them the same.
A person sending money for third world vaccinations and someone murdering an abortion doctor will both claim to be "pro-life" but I wouldn't blame them for each others actions.
I was really pissed when some eco-terrorist burned down a building at our local university several years ago, including burning collections of plants and research meant to help PRESERVE the eco-system.
23 - Jon Sobel
T. C. Boyle wrote an interesting fictional treatment of Earth First in his novel A Friend of the Earth - anybody else read it?
24 - Dave Nalle
BTP, where in the article did I compare Earth Day to terrorism? I just used Earth Day as a contextual starting point for the essay on ecoterror. As is clear from the article I'm all for Earth Day. I like the idea of positive support of the environment. I used to run a disc golf tournament that raised money for earth day charities, in fact. Want to buy a T-Shirt form it? I still have a few.
Dave
25 - Temple Stark
SEE comment 8 oh obtuse one