Considering that the “eco-terrorism” arrests dubbed “Operation Backfire” didn’t even make it into the local paper’s top 20 news stories of 2007, and the National Association of Manufacturers claims “boy, we sure didn’t hear about this” (which I find very, very hard to believe), I thought I’d highlight a good series of background articles on the topic.
The Indypendent, a “free paper for free people” in New York City, had a great feature a while back called “Playing with Fire.” Jessica Lee, a staff writer, wrote an interesting profile of Daniel McGowan, a great short backgrounder on the Earth Liberation Front, and more.
Here are a few highlights.
From Lee’s profile of Daniel McGowan, on his motivations for taking part in the Earth Liberation Front actions:
“If I would have written a statement that I think genetic-engineered trees are bad and oldgrowth logging is bad and sent it to every media outlet in the country, it wouldn’t have been paid attention to,†he explained. “There is something really strange about when you attach a statement to an arson it suddenly becomes newsworthy … it is like propaganda with teeth.â€
And how the Jefferson Poplar arson made him rethink everything:
“I don’t know if it was the gasoline fumes that overwhelmed me or just the gravity of the situation, but I was standing there going, ‘Whoa. What am I doing? I am drenched in gasoline and we are about to burn 13 huge SUVs. I thought, this isn’t right, this is not it.’ But I finished what I was doing and went back to Eugene. I felt that I needed to think about what I just did.â€
After the arsons, McGowan was beset by doubts about his “double existence.†“It was like torching a candle on both ends,†he said.
Lee also has an interesting article on the motivations of this “Green Scare,” where we talked about the idea of a culture war:
Corporations and research programs that find themselves the targets of environmental and animal rights campaigns are turning to the government for help, says Potter, not only to prosecute people for criminal damages, but also to discredit their beliefs. “The War on Terrorism is merely a tactic to fight an ideological war against those who challenge the notion that humans have the right to subjugate the environment or animals to their own selfish interests,†Potter said.
Also check out Jessica Lee’s work on the so-called “homegrown terrorism” bill.