My compliments to T.K. for a robust and well-argued defence of the 
burning of the Vail ski resort.
However, I do not myself believe that the principle of private property,
or the privileges of wealth, or the habitat of the lynx , need nescessarily
be invoked to justify the action. I believe that those arguments are
relatively trivial when contrasted with the core issues.

Unfortunately, moral choices are seldom clear cut choices between the
good and the bad. Most often, choices must be made between a greater 
or a lesser evil. Like surgical removal of a gangrenous limb to preserve 
the life of the rest of the body.

U.S. soceity, and many other governments, institutions, businesses, etc, 
are constantly invoking this principle to justify their actions. We are told,
for example, that the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Yugoslavia,
is a regrettable nescessity. Regret is expressed for 'collateral damage'.
The loss of innocent lives is seen as an inevitable cost, a lesser evil, 
incurred in the struggle against a supposed greater evil, i.e. an anti-
American, anti-democratic, tyrranical expansionary regime, and in favour
of supposed 'goods', such as law and order, freedom and democracy.
Thousand of innocent people are killed and maimed in road accidents
every year, so that we can have the convenience of motor transport.
Thousands of workers lose their jobs so that a corporation remains
profitable for the share holders.

I argue here that the U.S.A. is committing the ulimate evil of genocide
against many peoples all around the planet, and that any action or direct
action which might possibly jolt the American citizens out of their torpor
and complacency is fully justifiable - even if there should be unfortunate 
and regretable collateral damage - as a lesser evil, in the face of the
vastly greater evil that current industrialised corporate capitalist culture 
is committing. 

I endorse and commend the ALF and ELF, EF!, Greenpeace, and anyone else 
who realises that there is something far more important at issue, at this
time, than private property, democracy, or even individual human lives. 
What I mean is that the whole future of the biosphere, of this planet, as 
a habitable environment, is in the balance.

Land use - be it ski resorts, felling of forests, agri-business, dams, roads, 
houses, etc, etc, - has a direct effect upon the global climate. 
The United States, with I think just five percent of the worlds population 
is producing twenty percent of the greenhouse gases which are causing 
global climate change, (amongst many other eco-crimes) and there seems 
to be very little sign that the citizens and corporations are prepared to 
change their ways.

It is surely only common sense that each generation ought to hand a viable 
future to its children. But this generation has stolen the future from their 
children. It's already too late. Global warming cannot be reversed, the Ozone 
Holes can't be fixed. It looks to me as if we are going to have runaway global 
warming that will leave this planet rather like Mars. The antarctic and arctic 
icecaps, the glaciers and permafrost are melting. The sea level rise will 
inundate the coastal regions where eighty percent of people live, and where 
most productive agricultural land is. The atmosphere is apparently already 
25 miles thinner because the warmer gas escapes gravity and goes off into 
Space..

All this anguished hand-wringing about the ethics of burning a ski resort...
but every time that you who live in the industrialised parts of the world boil 
a kettle or drive a car, you are _killing_ other _humans_. It's just that those 
people, the victims, are anonymous and at a sufficient distance that their 
plight can be ignored.

I applaud the few people who have the insight and have the guts to actually
try and do something about this dire and tragic situation. I admire them for 
having the courage to confront the insanity of the present policies of the U.S. 
and other governments, and the irresponsibility of transnational corporations.

The vast majority of humans don't understand, or don't care, or are powerless 
like mesmerised sheep. And all the while, day by day, the technosphere is
destroying the biosphere. The biosphere is collapsing, which means us all 
heading into a most horrible future. No democracy, no private property, no
human civilisation at all. Just a big meltdown. There is not much time left
to change this scenario.

C.L.


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