So were the buildings the ELF destroyed "homes" or "houses"? The different
connotation is a distinction with a difference. An unoccupied home is one
thing; an unfilled house on the market is quite another, for sure. I can't
resist referring to Joyce Kilmer's "The House with Nobody in It."
-Tc
Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
Department of English
University of Houston-Downtown
One Main Street
Houston, TX 77009
713.221.8520/713.868.3979
"Question Reality"
> ----------
> From: Jim Tantillo[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 7:49 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: ECOTERRORISTS STRIKE LONG ISLAND CONSTRUCTION SITE
>
> >It may be so that ELF is giving direct action a bad name, but on the
> other
> >hand, direct action does not equal violence, as you assert in your first
> >paragraph.
> >
> > Destruction of property is not the essence of violence. Violence
> >directly involves humans. Thus, property destruction is direct action
> that
> >avoids harming people, thus, avoids violence. It is sad that our material
> >society has so fully bought into the propertied class's conflation of
> >violence with property damage. It's just not so. Ref. Ed Abbey on this.
> >-Tc
>
> I find the references to Edward Abbey pretty ironic. What little ethical
> justification Abbey provided for eco-sabotage in his writings was based on
> an argument from analogy to property damage inflicted upon peoples' homes.
> Consider the following:
>
> "If a stranger batters your door down with an axe, threatens your
> family and yourself with deadly weapons and proceeds to loot your home of
> whatever he wants, he is committing what is universally recognized--by law
> and in common morality--as a crime. In such a situation the householder
> has
> both the right and the obligation to defend himself, his family and his
> property by whatever means necessary. This right and this obligation is
> universally recognized, justified and praised by all civilized human
> communities. Self-defense against attack is one of the basic laws not only
> of human society but of life itself, not only of human life but of all
> life.
>
> "The American wilderness, what little remains, is now
> undergoing exactly such an assult. With bulldozer, Earth mover, chainsaw
> and dynamite the international timber, mining and beef industries are
> invading out public lands--property of all Americans--bashing their way
> into our forests, mountains and rangelands and looting them for everything
> they can get away with. . . .
>
> " And if the wilderness is our true home, and if it is
> threatened with invasion, pillage and destruction--as it certainly
> is--then
> we have the right to defend that home, as we would our private quarters,
> by
> whatever means are necessary. We have the right to resist and we have the
> obligation; not to defend that which we love would be dishonorable. . . .
>
> "How best defend our homes? Well, that is a matter of the
> strategy, tactics and techniques which eco-defense is all about.
>
> "What is eco-defense? Eco-defense means fighting back.
> Eco-defense means sabotage. Eco-defense is risky but sporting;
> unauthorized
> but fun; illegal but ethically imperative. Next time you enter a public
> forest scheduled for chainsaw massacre by some timber corporation and its
> flunkies in the US Forest Service, carry a hammer and a few pounds of
> 60-penny nails in your creel, saddlebag, game bag, backpack or picnic
> basket. Spike those trees; you won't hurt them; they'll be grateful for
> the
> protection; and you may save the forest. Loggers hate nails. My Aunt Emma
> back in West Virginia has been enjoying this pleasant exercise for years.
> She swears by it. It's good for the trees, it's good for the woods and
> it's
> good for the human soul. Spread the word."
>
> From _One Life at a Time, Please_, pp. 29-32 (NY: Henry Holt, 1988); these
> excerpts also at: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/9432/
>
> Jim here: I'd hazard the guess that trashing peoples' homes--empty or
> not--is hardly the kind of "eco-defense" Abbey originally had in mind.
>
> For another view of similar ELF actions, see Ernest Partridge's essay,
> "Put
> Down that Monkey Wrench!" (at
> http://www.igc.org/gadfly/liberal/monkeywrench.htm ) which was inspired by
> a previous discussion of this topic on this list earlier this year.
>
> Jim T.
>
>
>
> >
> >Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> >Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> >Department of English
> >University of Houston-Downtown
> >One Main Street
> >Houston, TX 77009
> >713.221.8520/713.868.3979
> >"Question Reality"
> >
> >> ----------
> >> From: Steven Bissell[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> >> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 9:26 AM
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: ECOTERRORISTS STRIKE LONG ISLAND CONSTRUCTION SITE
> >>
> >> We had a growth initiative fail in the recent election. Apparently some
> >> who
> >> were for the initiative and claim to be ELF have been burning or
> >> threatening
> >> to burn houses in Boulder county. As I recall my reading of direct
> action
> >> writers the idea of direct action (which really means "violence") is
> that
> >> it
> >> should be directed at the source of oppression and you should be
> willing
> >> to
> >> place yourself in danger of either harm or capture when you do it;
> hence
> >> the
> >> old idea of the bomb throwing anarchist, that is literally what you are
> >> suppose to do. What ELF seems to be doing is not much more than
> vandalism,
> >> and to disguise it as environmental direct action really pisses me off.
> >>
> >> I was involved in the Vietnam protest and direct action associated with
> >> the
> >> first Earth Day. I was threatened with arrest and placed on a list of
> >> potential "terrorists" by the sheriff's office. I am not a pacifist nor
> do
> >> I
> >> shrink from civil disobedience of the more violent nature. From what
> I've
> >> seen so far, ELF is giving direct action a bad name.
> >>
> >> Steven
> >>
> >>
>
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