Required Reading
Flames of Dissent: The local spark that ignited an eco-sabotage boom — and bust
STORY BY KERA ABRAHAM. PHOTOS BY KURT JENSEN. The Eugene Weekly, Nov-Dec 2006
In a high-profile sweep that began on Dec. 7, 2005 and continues into the present, the federal government indicted 18 people for a spate of environmentally motivated sabotage crimes committed in the West between 1996 and 2001. No one was physically hurt in the actions, mainly arsons against corporate and government targets perceived to be destroying the planet. Yet the FBI is calling the defendants “eco-terrorists” and seeking particularly stiff sentences for the five remaining non-cooperators, whose trials are pending. Eight defendants have pled guilty, four are fugitives and one committed suicide in jail.
Segments of the American public have glanced at the mug shots inked into newspapers and seen dangerous eco-fanatics who belong behind bars. But here in Eugene, where most of the alleged saboteurs have lived, those faces are familiar to hundreds and dear to many. In recent months, EW spoke with more than a dozen local people who described the accused as compassionate, Earth-loving people, influenced by a time that also shaped Eugene.
Five years after the last act of arson, the so-called Operation Backfire arrests have sparked the national media’s curiosity. That attention, beaming like a headlight through a fog of paranoia, tends to obscure the other regrowth that sprouted from the ashes of Eugene’s eco-radical era.
This five-part series attempts to tell that story.
Part I: In Defense of Cascadia: The Warner Creek campaign [here]
Part II: Eco-Anarchy Rising [here]
Part III: Eco-Anarchy Imploding [here]
Part IV: The Bust [here]
Part V: The Ashes [here]
by Tim Bailey
Exactly.
Flames of Dissent was written by a fawning admirer and apologist for the anarchist-arsonists. The disgusting immorality and horrific crimes, including rape of their own and tossing milk jugs of gasoline into school buildings, juxtaposed by the ignorant hero worship for that kind of behavior, paints a shocking picture that burns into the memory.
I will never forget. I know who those people are and what they did.
Tim, once I had a friend named Gil Murray. We were classmates at the UC Berkeley School of Forestry. He went on to become the president-elect of the California Forestry Association. Then one day at the office, April 24, 1995, Gil opened a package that came in the mail. It was from the Unabomber. They say Gil died instantly in the explosion, without suffering. His wife and boys and thousands of friends have suffered every day ever since.
You can read my post about it [here]
I will never forget. That’s what these posts are for: to remind, so that none of us ever forget.
by Forrest Grump
Oh, but their hearts were in the right place. Right?
Extreme ideology is not a victimless crime. This is a lesson mankind should have learned during the horrors of the 20th century.
It no great mental leap to connect the extremist environmental movement with the ideologies that gave rise to the greatest inhumanities in human history.
The dangers we face today are far more than the demise of our heritage forests and landscapes. Civilization is once again at stake. Make no mistake about it. That is why the stands we take today in defiance of extreme ideologies are so important.
by Forrest Grump
But we’re not allowed to say extreme things about extremists.
Free speech is a tricky thing these days, especially when confronting the litigious. It can get you fired or worse, assuming you have a job.
When the Gov hires and fires the faculty at the land grant University based on his political whim, and there is meek acquiescence from the public, you can be sure that ideologues have usurped your rights and freedoms.
When vast tracts of public land are incinerated on purpose by the land management agencies acting on behalf of BINGO’s, you can be sure that your voice and vote count for nothing.
When the government breeds wolves and releases them in your neighborhood, you can be sure that the American Constitution is a worthless rag.
The situation is dire. Meek acquiescence in the face of belligerent tyranny is not a virtue any longer, if it ever was.
by Joe B.
It did not take long to realize this series was nothing more than a revisionist history trying to humanize very inhumane acts.
Send your kid to Eco Radical Camp! Where she’ll be raped and embarked on a life of crime! Only to end up in the Fed Pen while her “lover” gags himself to death on a baggie!
Plant a ring in your nose and stop taking baths. That’ll save the planet. Throw bags of your own excrement at the Freddies! Stand in the middle of the road and hope the log truck stops for you. Be a martyr for Gaia!
But especially burn baby burn. Burn it all. Burn the forests, burn the schools, burn the homes, burn the cities. Burn baby burn baby burn baby burn baby burn…
So what caused this old piece of crap to be posted at this time? Required reading maybe, as long as people are aware of what a tremendous distortion this series of articles represent. Sorry, but this whole affair, and the Eugene Weekly’s take on it, is a real sore point for me.
You see, some of these jerks burnt down my Ranger Station 12 years ago, causing personal damage by destroying a 20 year collection of research articles and other publications, not to mention the best pair of Whites I’ve ever owned. And all because (apparently) we had the audacity to suggest harvesting a mere 4% of the trees killed by the 1991 Warner Creek fire.
Old-growth harvest indeed! Those were all dead trees, and the politicians stopped it all several years before the station fire anyway. The fact that someone is defending these folks in part because “they didn’t kill anybody” absolutely infuriates me. No matter that in this one Ranger Station incident they cost the taxpayers a cool $4MM to replace (and that’s not counting the personal gear lost; the government did very little reimbursing for all the field clothes and personal books that were gone), not to mention the incalculable loss of resource records, aerial photos, contract documents, historical documents and cultural artifacts spanning thousands of years of history.
I hope everyone who reads this crap can see through it’s incredible (in so many ways) bias, it flawed set of implied morals, and generally distorted view of the world.