keep on rockin' in the free world
Grist's got an interview with so-called "eco-terrorist" Jeff Luers that's worth a look.
I don't know where "Free" - Jeff's nom de guerre - falls in the hierarchy of radical ecological activism, but he comes across as refreshingly down-to-earth and candid about his views; a nice change from the more high profile ELF spokespeople who generally sounded (and wrote) like a parody of environmentalism cooked up by a hack news columnist with a Kool Aid mustache.
I have to wonder if it's a matter of guilt that pushes activists like Free to the extremes they intend; maybe even a warped notion of the already controversial "P-word." Jeff, and others, assert non-violence is a lost cause - the last forty years not withstanding - but in the meantime, SUV-burning or toppling electrical towers haven't exactly managed to capture the imagination of the country.
Their integrity is admirable. But, even out of jail, they talk and act like they're a million miles away from the rest of us. Rather than try and rationalize away vandalism or property crime in an oblique political or philosophical frame, it'd be much more affecting to hear someone, at least just once, say that they were just fed up and angry and holy shit they had to do something.
Ultimately, I think it might speak more to how we frame the environment here in America when young people - or anyone really - can't make a claim to defend the land out of a sense of heritage or place or balance and be heard, and have to fall back on dopey arguments that wouldn't even fly in poli-sci 101.
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