Which Prisoners Should Receive Support?
Feb 24th, 2008 by Will Potter
When environmental and animal rights advocates are sentenced to lengthy prison terms—many as “terrorists”—they depend on the support of friends, family and the larger activist community. They need money in their commissary account. They need books and magazines. They need visitors, phone calls, and perhaps above all else, according to many current and former prisoners I’ve interviewed, they need letters: sometimes mail call is the only thing to look forward to in prison. The support, or lack of support, of these activists also sends a message to the government and to other activists.
But doing all this prison support work can be time consuming and draining. Base-line decisions have to be made about what, at bare minimum, qualifies a prisoner for support from the wider activist community. And lately, many activists have been struggling with what disqualifies a prisoner from receiving support.
Chris “Dirt” McIntosh attempted to burn down a McDonalds in Seattle, in 2005, and is serving an eight-year prison sentence (his guilty plea dropped it down from a minimum of 30, as the government was pushing to use “terrorism” laws against him). The crime was claimed by both the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front.
The Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network just announced it is ending all support for McIntosh, and encouraging others to do the same, after investigating racist and sexist comments he has made. The support network says:
1) McIntosh has adopted White Supremacist views whilst in prison. A number of people have contacted ELP saying that McIntosh has started to associate with a racist gang and has even gone as far as to get a racist ‘white power’ tattoo. In a letter to one of his supporters McIntosh enclosed a photo of himself and referred to his tattoo which was not visible in the photo. He told another supporter how he would show off his tattoo upon his release from prison.
[As an aside, that’s quite a strikingly different prison experience than, for instance, http://www.myspace.com/andystepanian Andy Stepanian, who just sent a letter celebrating the work of the Black Panthers and urging animal rights advocates to support the San Francisco 8. “The Panther fed our mornings with free breakfasts and our hearts with power. The Panther took this love and handed it to our captors like Valentine's flowers. The Panther stole the hearts of the ghetto and white privilege alike.”]
2) McIntosh, through his Social Darwinian beliefs, thinks that ‘might makes right’, or as he puts it in one of his letters “supremacy to the strongest”.
3) McIntosh has told at least one female supporter that it is okay for a man to rape a woman (under his ‘might makes right’ theme).
4) ELP has had it confirmed that since going into prison McIntosh has abandoned his vegetarian diet and has reverted to eating meat.
I have never spoken with McIntosh, but on his website there are some notes along those lines. In October, 2007, he wrote that he had asked to be removed from prisoner support lists because “I had become frustrated and disillusioned by the resistance to evolution within the struggle… Also, I don’t understand why the foremost natural law - might makes right - is not held paramount.” He then had a change of heart, saying “I need mental and emotional support.”
This isn’t the first time prisoner support networks have struggled with these issues. Resist.ca, an anarchist collective that hosts websites and provides technical support to activists, came under fire recently for hosting the website of Darren Thurston’s support group. Thurston, you’ll remember, is one of the cooperating defendants in the Operation Backfire cases, where activists were rounded up and charged with serious property crimes committed in the name of defending the environment. [Here’s a previous post on Thurston, “Cooperator, Snitch or Something Else?”]
A couple groups have refused to work with Resist.ca any longer. Here’s a statement from one:
Wii’nimkiikaa removed its site from resist.ca as an act of solidarity with those ‘Green Scare’ defendants who have chosen not to collaborate nor snitch on others. ‘Wolves Not Sheep’, the archive of the Vancouver Native Youth Movement also removed its site from resist.ca at the same time for the same reasons.
But as someone commented in a discussion on the Infoshop website:
I’ve read one irresponsible call for activist sites to boycott Resist. This takes criticism and differences of opinion to a puritanical level, which I can’t support. Our radical tech infrastructure, as well as much of our alternative media, are in a precarious situation already. Organizing a campaign to disrupt a radical ISP over a difference of opinion is in my opinion just as bad as snitching.
What do you think? What are the bare-minimum requirements for supporting “Green Scare” prisoners?
Wow, this is a really tough situation. Cutting off support of a political prisoner who goes fascist sounds like the right idea, but it might just contribute to his/her further disillusionment with left politics.
I understand that prison is a stressful environment, but it’s really surprising to hear how much Dirt has changed since he entered prison… Social darwinist, white power, abandoning vegetarianism. That’s a lot of changes. I wonder what his thoughts are on his conviction. Does he stand by his action? For the same reasons?
This may lead me to write to him.
Yeah, it makes you wonder if he really believed in environmental or progressive issues to begin with, or if his crime was about something else entirely.
I know this is an extreme case, but there are also a lot of right-winger nutjobs out there that have taken, or would consider, environmentally-motivated crimes. So the more I think about this, it makes me wonder: at what point would someone not qualify for support? I’m not disagreeing with the decision to cut support for McIntosh (so don’t jump down my throat anybody), just posing the question.
At as regards snitches like Darren Thurston, I think it is pretty straight forward. There should be NO support for those who contribute to the capture, jailing, prosecution and imprisonment of animal and earth warriors. In fact, snitches should be dealt with in a manner that makes the consequences of such dishonorable and despicable, self-centered actions very clear. The animal and earth liberation movement has failed, in my opinion, to hold these traitors culpable for their crimes against the planet.
Jerry, your comment makes me think of the Mafia and rats.
Sounds like a very confused individual. I can understand the ALF cutting him off because of the diet. But there is a wide array of ideas and oppinions within the Earth Liberation movement and I think that these points are subject to a deeper and more thorough analysis by supporters.
A rat never sent anyone to prison; rats are noble creatures living their lives according to the laws of a natural world. Snitches, on the other hand, are humans who will betray a fellow warrior to save their own skin, or maybe just shorten their own prison term.
In more general terms on the subject at hand, those who will oppress women, those of a different race or ethnic background, what-have-you, are of the same mindset that allows the oppression, exploitation, and murder of non-human animals. Racism, sexism, and speciesism are all related, and all of us opposed to oppression should stand together to fight those who would deprive others of their rights to live free.
The discourse on this whole issue seems to revolve around this idea that there two categories of green scare defendants: co-operators and non-co-operators. This is a drastic oversimplification and, quite frankly, a false dichotomy. For instance, I was shocked upon actually reading Daniel McGowan’s plea agreement to find out that part of his bargains requires him to co-operate fully with investigators in every respect except for the naming of names of other involved individuals. Now, don’t get me wrong: I think Daniel is a brave and committed guy and applaud him for standing by his ideals in the face of some serious pressure. However, calling him “non-co-operating” is something of a misnomer. In fact, all the non-co-operating defendents signed similar deals.
After the information provided by Ferguson and Meyerhoff, pretty much the one thing the FBI knew for sure were the names of the individuals. There may have been a lot of details about various actions that investigators were unclear on, but who participated in which action was pretty much firmly established by the time Meyerehoff had finished talking. Keeping silent on names is noble, to be sure, but in this instance it was probably of only limited use.
By comparison, Thurston chose to name names in his co-operation agreement, and has received a lot of vilification for it. Perhaps Thuston gets singled out more than the others (at least it seems that way) because of his long history in direct action — he’d already done time for a live liberation action and was the vicitim of attempted entrapment and all sorts of police malfeasance in Canada prior to his 2005 arrest. Thurston, of all the green scare defendants (with the possible exception of Jonathan Paul), had the most experience with arrest and detention. So, why did he choose to give names?
Obviously, not being Darren Thurston, I can’t say for sure, but i do know this. At the time Thurston accepted his plea (he was the last of the naming defendants to do so), the names of all involved in everything were out on the table. Spilling that information was certainly not going to make anything worse for anyone involved. Thurston, did, however, strike a plea agreement that allowed him to hold back other, potentially more important information. As part of his agreement, Thurston was not obliged to divulge any information on any activity that happened in Canada. I suspect that if he had reversed his priorities — not named names but divulged information on his actions north of the border — he would be lauded as a hero, but a lot of people in Canada might be in jeapordy as investigations up there got re-opened on the merit of Thurston’s self-implicating information.
Padma wrote: “I suspect that if he had reversed his priorities — not named names but divulged information on his actions north of the border — he would be lauded as a hero, but a lot of people in Canada might be in jeapordy as investigations up there got re-opened on the merit of Thurston’s self-implicating information.”
Or he could have just kept his fucking mouth shut altogether. What a concept! Enough of the apologist attitude for those who have betrayed others; if you’ve ever sat through a trial, its apparent how the evidence given by snitch after snitch, even if repetitive, adds up to either a guilty plea or a conviction against those warriors brave enough to keep silent.
Virtually 100% of convictions, imprisonment and executions come about either because: (1) the action is committed by someone with direct ties to the crime, such as violence by family members or acquaintances against their own (2) diarrhea of the mouth, in which one brags about ones deeds or is snitched on by a former comrade (the current case) or (3) getting caught in the act (extremely rare). Leaving behind large amounts of forensic evidence would probably fall into this category as well.
Conviction rates that do not involve one of the 3 situations above, even for major crimes such as murder, are less than 25%, and much lower for lesser crimes. Of literally thousands of animal and earth liberation illegal direct actions committed over the last 2-3 decades, only a handful of people have ever been imprisoned for any serious length of time.
An excellent read on this is “Beat the Heat”, available from almost any online bookstore, or through the Animal Liberation Press Office.
When will you people learn that Jerry Vlasak and his kind are who the AETA was meant to target. I am a State Wildlife Biologist, I do more for the Environment and animals that Jerry and all of the ALF combined. Below are a few quotes from Jerry Vlasak just to show you how unstable he really is.
“If someone is killing, on a regular basis, thousands of animals, and if that person can only be stopped in one way by the use of violence, then it is certainly a morally justifiable solution.”
— Jerry Vlasak on “Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!” (Showtime cable network), Apr 2004
“I don’t think you’d have to kill — assassinate — too many … I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.”
— Jerry Vlasak at the “Animal Rights 2003″ convention, advocating the murder of doctors whose life-saving biomedical experiments require the use of animals,
“If someone is killing, on a regular basis, thousands of animals, and if that person can only be stopped in one way by the use of violence, then it is certainly a morally justifiable solution.”
— “Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!” (Showtime cable network), Apr 2004
“I don’t have any doubt in my mind that there will come a time when we will see violence against animal rights abusers.”
— Jerry Vlasak on “Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!” (Showtime cable network), Apr 2004
You may not agree with my viewpoint that those who abuse, torture and murder animals should be stopped, using the least obtrusive measures necessary, but anyone who knows me well knows I am about the most stable person on the planet. And it was no less than Nelson Mandela who said “Non-violence is not a moral principle, but a strategy, and there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective strategy.”
No oppressor ever relinquishes their power voluntarily; every successful liberation struggle has required the use or threat of force to effect change. I wish it were different, but the struggle to save our ecosystems and halt animal exploitation is a comparable struggle to others for liberation, both historical and concurrent.
I’m not sure what Joe does for the environment, but as long as he isn’t exploiting that or the animals for personal gain or pleasure (such as do vivisectors, hunters, fur farmers, foresters, etc.) then more power to him.
You are right Jerry I don’t agree with your view, I believe in animal welfare but not animal rights. I am sure that those who know you well believe you are stable because those who know you well are unbalanced terrorist like you! I love how you terrorist compared yourselves to great people in history. I case you forgot Nelson Mandela was fighting for HUMAN rights, and you are trying to stop real doctors from finding cures to diseases like cancer.
As a wildlife Biologist I have protected lands from development, caught polluters, protected endangered species. I also support regulated hunting and set seasons and bag limits based on data collected during the year. I also have been a victim of animal rights terrorist who have threatened to kill me and my children because I support hunting.
Looks like Joe is a speciesist, under the impression that because he belongs to the human species, every other species is available for his subjugation, whether killing them for sport or to further his career. No different than his racism and sexism, which presumably exist alongside.
As a clinician, I can assure Joe that wasting money killing animals in laboratories will not lead to cures for his beloved race…er, species. I do have one question for the “biologist”; who regulated all these animal populations in the billion (at least) years before his almighty species came along with their firearms and leghold traps? Or did the world begin 10,000 years ago with Adam and Eve?
I see… so let me get this straight Jerry, I support hunting therefor I am some sort of skinhead Nazi like Hitler?(wait wasn’t Hitler a vegetarian?) You don’t even know what race I am Jerry so how can you call me a raciest?
As for you being a “clinician” I pity any who may seek your care, for they will be doomed to die because you have no idea about cures or procedures found using animal testing. Here is a short list of those in case you forgot. Kidney transplants,Polio vaccine,Replacement heart valves,Hip replacement surgery,Drugs for high blood pressure ,Heart bypass operations,Drugs to treat mental illness,Rubella vaccine ,Chemotherapy for leukemia,Drugs to treat stomach ulcers,Inhaled asthma medication ,Drugs to control transplant rejection,Life support systems for premature babies,Hepatitis vaccines,Treatment for river blindness,Meningitis vaccine,Combined drug therapies for AIDS and Drugs for breast and prostate cancer.Any of these look familiar Jerry or did you miss that day at medical school?
Humans have been regulating animal species long before the firearm was invented. To answer your question Jerry nobody regulated species before man evolved, they were for better or worse self regulating. In recent years it has become necessary because of mans encroachment into wildlife habitat. That statement may sound like I support your cause..I don’t. I don’t belive we (man) should develop more wild lands but I don’t believe in arson either. I use my job to find reasons to stop a development legally and have done so on many occasions. What have you done to save a habitat from development?