Earth Liberation Front Press Office Returns, Issues Warning to Obama

by Will Potter on November 24, 2008

in Activism & Activists' Response

Earth Liberation Front arson at Vail ski resort.

Earth Liberation Front arson at Vail ski resort.

I was outside the White House on election night, and I don’t know if I can accurately describe how surreal it felt. I left work at about two in the morning with a friend and we saw hundreds, if not thousands, of people moving down 16th Street to the White House. Along the way folks hugged strangers, couples danced on cars. The crowd at the White House was the most diverse I have ever seen at a protest/gathering/whatever-you-would-call-this. Fratish guys from GWU joined students from Howard in chanting “Pack yo shit up” and “Whose house? Obama’s house!” We stayed until about four in the morning. I don’t think anybody wanted to leave that celebration… for me, it was because that energy was a temporary relief from a constantly present question: Will this change anything?

There’s no question that Barack Obama is drastically different than Emperor Palpatine and his wingnut accomplice. But I’m concerned that so many people seem to view his election as the end of a struggle, rather than a beginning. At best, I think Obama should be used as a vehicle for change, as a more receptive audience for the voices of mass movements. He should be viewed with the same criticism and skepticism as any president, as anyone in any position of power.

Standing out in the freezing cold, I really wanted to suspend my own doubts and just enjoy this victory, this step in the right direction. Then a large group of young people began chanting “USA! USA!” and I quickly snapped back into reality and wondered: Is this how we are going to respond?

It’s clear that the mainstream environmental and animal protection movements have a substantially different political landscape for their legislative and legal efforts. They will respond to this new Congress and new administration by ramping up their efforts, and are expecting a friendly response.

And the radical environmental movement? After all, Obama has been critical of “eco-terrorist” scare-mongering and legislation. How will underground groups respond to his presidency? It looks like they’re ramping up their efforts as well.

The Earth Liberation Front Press Office has reopened after a hiatus of several years. The press office is the legal, above-ground organization that speaks out on behalf of the tactics of illegal activists. Press officers use their First Amendment rights to defend activists who, because of their conduct, can’t speak for themselves.

The office first opened in 2000. Taking such an open, public stance on illegal tactics quickly made Craig Rosebraugh and Leslie James Pickering targets of the FBI… who hadn’t been able to catch anyone actually committing crimes, so they went after people simply using their First Amendment rights. The FBI tried relentlessly to tie Rosebraugh and Pickering to illegal activity, to no avail. [Check out Rosebraugh’s Congressional testimony here]. For a variety of reasons the press office closed in 2002 (for a more detailed account, check out “Earth Liberation Front: 1997-2002″ and “Burning Rage of a Dying Planet”).

There’ll be much more here on the ELF Press Office in coming months, but first up I wanted to highlight their press release on the presidential election, “Earth Liberation Front Press Office to New Obama Administration: Protect the environment or the ELF will.”

“The incoming Obama Administration’s plan for the environment, or lack thereof, may very well influence the activities of the Earth Liberation Front throughout the next four years,” stated Lisa Nesbitt, one of four new press officers for the NAELFPO. “The $150 million in damages caused by the ELF in the last decade to environmentally destructive corporations was, in part, a direct response to the refusal of the U.S. Government to take necessary measures to stop environmental destruction…

“The U.S. Government has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, refused to permanently protect the Artic [sic] National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), refused to stop the logging of national forests, and refused to heighten the Energy Act standards for light cars, trucks and commercial vehicles – the greatest contributor to global warming,” Nesbitt continued. “We have one message for the incoming Obama Administration: act to protect the environment or the ELF will.”

What do you all think about the decision to reopen the ELF Press Office? And what do you think it reflects about this larger “Green Scare”?

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  • http://mediahacker.org ansel

    Opening the press office on the web is a really smart move. I read Bill Ayers’ book a few years ago, and then studied the Weather Underground a bit more recently in my class on radical social movements. I got emotional at times doing the reading, because what they did was so courageous but equally futile. Not having a strong above-ground presence – in alliance or at least in contact with other militant groups – and cultivating an almost adversarial relationship with the press , I think, were major reasons for their inefficiency.

    That said, I’m not sure that the ominous “if you don’t, we will” statement at the end of this latest ELF release is a good idea. That doesn’t help the organization shed the “terrorist” label or discourage the press from sensationalizing them as such. Everyone knows the ELF does radical direct action, including property destruction. Trying to sound scary in the press release isn’t necessary. More positivity would be better.

    This comment’s getting too long, but a final thought – one thing the group’s in the sixties often did well was to explicitly connect their struggles with those of others. So maybe it’d be smart for the ELF voice their support for communities in the South resisting mountaintop removal, or applaud the Longest Walk of indigenous Americans, or decry the impact of the border wall on the Earth here in the Southwest, or maybe even acknowledge the joy of so many people at Obama’s victory…

  • http://greentangle.blogspot.com greentangle

    I think your ELF link is missing the www but even with it added, I’m just getting a blank page after skipping the intro. Whether that’s an ELF problem, or my computer, or the government’s doing, I don’t know.

    Those seem to be pretty mainstream enviro issues the ELF is talking about in its press release, and a website with Flash seems odd also but maybe that’s just my Luddite tendencies.

    I enjoyed Rosebraugh’s ELF book and have his book on violence but haven’t read it yet.

    I’m willing to assume Obama’s not going to try to hurry any species to extinction like Bush, but I think anyone who favors radical changes with regard to eco/animal issues is kidding her/himself if they expect any real change. He’s already busy loading up his administration with the same old same old.

  • Jen

    I felt exactly the same way on election night- I wanted to be as happy as everyone else, but I can’t shake my skepticism. I guess I’ll know more when I see who ends up heading the EPA. Did you hear about the UCS survey on political interference at the EPA? Although nothing compares to the last eight years, scientists are saying that the same phenomenon occurred during the Clinton administration.
    I know that RFK is on the losing side in the autism/vaccination quarrel, and is no longer a likely candidate for the chief, but I can’t help but smile when I read things like:
    “The issue with RFK Jr. is simply that he shoots his mouth off occasionally, such as by calling global warming skeptics “traitors” or suggesting factory farms are a bigger threat to the American way of life than Islamist terrorists.”

  • http://www.greenisthenewred.com Will Potter

    Ansel:
    I think you raise some great points. The press office seems to really be taking things in a different direction, in terms of the pro-active media outreach (as opposed to being more driven by communiques, and reacting to ELF actions). Having that an organized, accessible, vocal presence like that is really important… but I also agree with your comment about the Obama language.

    Greentangel:
    Thanks, I fixed the link. It should be working now, or at least it is for me…

  • http://www.greenisthenewred.com Will Potter

    Also, as an aside, someone said to me the other day that they think comments on blogs are notoriously bad (full of simple “LOLs” etc) but that the comments on this site are consistently engaged and useful.

    So, kudos to everyone, I completely agree. -Will

  • http://auditoryalpha.blogspot.com Animalia_Libero

    I didn’t vote for Obama because I didn’t agree with his wussified stance on everything I care about like the environment, human life in war, recruitment, nonhuman animals, etc. Although he has done a couple of little things to make me smile, I can tell just by his cabinet that he won’t be proving me wrong.

    The day after the election I was happy to be part of having the first black president and really hoped I would be shown wrong about Obama. But, even my Obama voting buddy felt nervous as well. A lot of people seem to think that, if they go out once every 4 years and hit a button, they’ve done a huge things for the world. That’s why it’s sad. People put so much into the election but nothing else… then act as if I owe them something because I didn’t vote democrat (or republican as a note).

    I think the publicity thing is a good move on the ELF’s part as was already said.

    Also, thanks for this blog. I am an avid reader but don’t comment much. I really appreciate its existence.

  • lantz.

    Ansel, I appreciate your comments and like you, have studied The Weather Underground. I don’t know that I agree with your point about the ELF, though.

    First, the WUO. I don’t think they were inefficient at all. They blew all sorts of things up, many of them fairly small targets, and yet remained underground, out of the reach of the FBI, for years. None of them were ever caught; they all turned themselves in after they grew tired of being invisible. So to say that they were inefficient, I think, isn’t very accurate.

    What they did fail to do, however, was to create a sustainable, lasting movement. They were very single-issue focused; it was all about the Vietnam war, which was extremely important, of course. But once the war ended, so did their time in the spotlight. I think it would have been better to recognize all movements as one, and to perform actions in solidarity with various struggles, at home and abroad. Not to mention that there was a little hypocrisy in there – most if not all of them were chain-smoking corporate cigarettes. Maybe even some of them were meat-eaters. Animals are a social class too, you know?

    But thanks to them, politically motivated property destruction became a useful and popular tactic. Their communiques were sometimes threatening, sometimes a bunch of hippie, white-privileged nonsense. But they took a stand in both words and action. So now we come to the ELF. Their communiques in the past haven’t been as threatening, but have still driven the point home and have been fairly aggressive at times. I think it would be a sort of compromise to play nice with the public. The State and the bourgeosie class are going to hate the ELF regardless of their tone or language, because they represent a grassroots threat to their power. Remember COINTELPRO? It infiltrated not only the WUO, but also student-run organizations, and the American Indian Movements. The FBI, to this day, is trying to infiltrate vegan potlucks and groups called “Hugs for Puppies.”

    Something tells me that, given this information, nicer language used in that press release wasn’t going to change one single, solitary thing.

    All that being said though, I agree with your final suggestion in that the ELF should specifically voice their support for other indigenous struggles. Obama’s victory, however, doesn’t mean much and has no place in an ELF communique.

    This is all just my opinion, of course.

    - lantz.

  • Sue

    Will and (Jen),

    Thanks for your thoughts on election night. I was also down by the White House that night. I share some of your perspective and feelings – however, what i feel is not what i consider skepticism. Skepticism, for me gives a little too much legitimacy to the idea that Obama represents real change. I am critical of the positive energy and hope behind Obama because i believe it is misplaced and even dangerous if it pacifies people towards working for true change.

    Maybe that’s the same thing as being skeptical, but I believe being a skeptic isn’t enough. We need to be not just skeptical of Obama, but conscious that he both a false solution and part of the same system that perpetuates animal exploitation; environmental destruction; war; poverty; and everything else we are working against.

    Perhaps the energy and hope around Obama is refreshing, but we need to push that energy further… because it’s not enough – and it’s smart and strategic to feel that; it’s not just mere skepticism…

    Keep up the good work Will.

  • http://www.greenisthenewred.com Will Potter

    That’s a great point, thanks Sue.

  • Pingback: easyVegan.info » Blog Archive » easyVegan Link Sanctuary, 2008-11-24

  • Global Warming

    “…the Energy Act standards for light cars, trucks and commercial vehicles – the greatest contributor to global warming”

    not to be picky but meat/animal agriculture is listed as the number one cause…”U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions — by comparison, all the world’s cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions.”

    oh and I would run spell check before the next PR.

  • http://www.greenisthenewred.com/ Will Potter

    Ansel:
    I think you raise some great points. The press office seems to really be taking things in a different direction, in terms of the pro-active media outreach (as opposed to being more driven by communiques, and reacting to ELF actions). Having that an organized, accessible, vocal presence like that is really important… but I also agree with your comment about the Obama language.

    Greentangel:
    Thanks, I fixed the link. It should be working now, or at least it is for me…

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