🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul8.194010.21715@morrow.stanford.edu> karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish) writes:
>In article <1992Jul8.162557.7503@pbhya.PacBell.COM> whheydt@PacBell.COM
>(Wilson Heydt) writes:
>
>>EarthFirst! has acquired a reputation for being on te fringes of (if
>>not actively involved in) 'violent' actions.  Some power line towers
>>in Arizona and numerous cases of tree spiking in NW California come to
>>mind in this connection.  
>
>The use of quotation marks in the preceding statement
>seems to express acknowledgement of EarthFirst!'s
>distinction between destruction of property and
>violence against people.

The use of quotes reflects that the direct actions--destroying
transmission towers or tree spiking--can result in indirect injury to
humans.  Spiking a tree doesn't do violence to the tree (particulary),
but it runs the risk of killing some lumberjack or mill operator when
power equipment hits the spike.  Dropping a power line can kill
through the lack of power at a critical time.  (I suggest reading up
on some of the nera misses that took place in New York during the
first major power failure in the 1960s.)

The question then becomes:  If actions that only damage inantimate
objects fails to cause the changes that a group wants, will such a
group (or individuals within the group) decide that stronger action
has become neccesary?

>>As there is a general trend that when you don't get your own way, to
>>escalate the action (look at nearly all wars, rebellions, revolutions,
>>and protest sequences), the suspicion that the EF folks were
>>transporting an explosive device on their own is *extremely* tempting.
>>The conclusion that this is so is nearly inescapable to anyone not an
>>EF partisan to start with.
>
>The device in question was very much an antipersonnel weapon,
>nails embedded in an explosive compound.  I'd never heard
>EarthFirst! even accused of advocating use of such weapons
>before the Oakland incident.

To begin with:  There is always a first time.  There are also
individuals within or associated with organizations that may take
actions which the group does not advocate.  Organizations can also
advocate types of actions that they will not (publically) speak of.

Note that I am not asserting that this has happened in this specific
case--only that such scenarios are just as plausible (if not more so)
than the ones drawn to try to claim that the individuals in question
are above suspicion.  The whole case is *extremely* murky.

>>That there is no proof of this one way or
>>the other does nothing to remove the logic of the situation (nor to
>>make in unjustified).
>
>EarthFirst!'s antagonists in Northern California have not
>shied away from violence.  This "logic" fits actions to be
>expected from them better than it fits EarthFirst!.

On the face of it, if an attempt were made by EF antagonists in No.
Calif., I'd've expected them to have been shot while driving along a
rural road.  Bombs aren't very characteristic of the EF opponets,
either.

	--Hal
-- 
Hal Heydt                    |    "Boycott Time-Warner"
Analyst, Pacific*Bell        |         --J. Danforth Quayle
510-823-5447                 |    "... kill all the lawyers."
whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM    |         --William Shakespeare