Category: Exxon Valdez

Violence and Environmeddling

April 13, 1996

North Fork of the Shoshone

       So I hear the FBI is promoting a connection between theirUnibomber suspect and Earth First! Pretty amusing, since Earth First! has always stressed non-violence to humans, especially in the Journal which has always been the most conservative element of the movement. Now “Live Wild or Die” is another story, but that’s not associated with Earth First! Just a bunch of folks who got fed up with Twinklers and consensus reality.
        Course, all you thinking folks already know this. It’s just the other 99 44/100 percent of the population of Amerikkka that gets it’s reality from TeeVee that has a problem in understanding. They hear about “anarchy” in the streets of Liberia, replete with moving images in glowing color of madness and mayhem, in the next instant seeing images of a long haired, bearded mad bomber who didn’t bath every day and didn’t have running water and electricity, drug away in chains, followed by a commercial for mouth wash. Can’t figger out why they’re so confused!
        Yep, them ecoterrorists should be hauled away to jail and left to rot. Damned unAmerikkkans. And they shouldn’t be allowed to spread their filthy lies, fomenting violence and insurrection. Damned filthy hippies anyway, look at that hair! Get a job, asshole!
        In 1990, I took a trip to the lower 48, just to see how bad things were getting and to spread the word about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. I traveled by bus, ferry, train, bus and thumb. I met a lot of cool folks, some of them young, some of them older. I stopped by the Madison River and spent some time with some folks with their heads togeether at the Round River Rendezvous. One of them was a guy named Ted Kozcinsky. Now I don’t remember old Ted any more than the other cool heads that were gathered there neath the pines (there was this one lady, though… sigh). But I do know that no one talked of blowing up folks or of any violence other than spiking trees and burning bulldozers, good healthy pasttimes, of no harm to anyone other than corporate pocketbooks. Anyone who who even suggested violence was summarily tossed out on his ear, or hers. Remember, this was at the height of the FBI paranoia and everyone eyed everyone else (well, almost everyone) with the thought of “informer” uppermost in mind. So it wasn’t in the atmosphere to promote violence of any sort.
        Now if ol’ Ted got any ideas about blowing up folks from THAT meeting, he had an active imagination! It just wasn’t on the agenda. Sure there was LWOD copies lying about and other subversive literature, and there was Monkeywrenching workshops, but non-violence was the norm. There was just two many Twinklers around to even bring up the subject!
        Remember the Code of the Ecowarrior: Rule #1: Nobody gets hurt! First and foremost, above all else.

        Course, we all know this is just another disinformation campaign on the part of our Friends with microphones in their lapels. They sure as hell wouldn’t pass up a chance to equate Earth First! with the Mad Anarchist! And they expect to see a furious denial on the part of the Earth First! coterie of any connection with the Unibomber or his ideas. This is called co-option, a technique learned to perfection by the constabulary in the 60s and 70s.
        
        As for me, I deny nothing. I stood in the relative vicinity of Ted Koczinsky on the Madison River. I may even have enjoyed a pleasant conversation with the man. I am a constant and unrelenting supporter of the Earth First! ideal, unto and foremostly including the dedication to non-violence to human beings. I retain my opposition to the techno-industrial monster that is devouring the natural world and I vow to my dying day to work to defeat the monster while there is still Wild
left to defend. I encourage any and all to join in this most holy of tasks, to engage in pleasant activity in the out-of-doors, especially that activity that preserves the wild and forestalls it’s destruction to
line the pockets of the filthy rich.
        Enough of this skulking rhetoric, there’s work to do.
        GWH

Welcome to Wild Anarchism

        Most of you are familiar with Ed Abbey’s support of monkeywrenching from his published works as expressed in the exploits of his characters. You also may know that he was a proponent of anarchism as a political philosophy and anarchy as a form of social organization.
        I am not Ed Abbey. I may not even be George Washington Hayduke (sometimes it gets a bit confusing). I am an anarchist, in action and in thought. My life is dedicated to bringing an end to capitalism as an economic system and to bringing down the corporate oligarchy that rules the United States, in the guise of democracy, and much of the rest of the world through economic domination and subjugation.
        The corporate oligarchy is all powerful in this very real world. Trans-national corporations control almost all governments, including the government of the United States. This is not a conspiracy, the favorite pejorative of the corporate toady. It is a system of interlinking agendas that serves to bring all public discourse under its control. The sole purpose of a corporation is to make a profit and, despite the popular myth of competition, corporations cooperate to that end.
        It is therefore impossible to change this system through democratic processes, since those very processes are controlled by the corporate elite. Again, this is not a conspiracy, but is a system of
information control that serves the purposes of the above-mentioned corporations. When you enter the voting booth, the important decisions have already been made for you so that it no longer matters which of the chosen candidates you grace with your approval.
        However, as an anarchist with Marxist-Leninist tendencies, I know that capitalism inevitably leads to socialism in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, trans-national corporations with access to, and control of, temporarily unlimited cheap energy, have postponed the inevitably of the social process as they continue to lay waste to the natural world in pursuit of ever expanding profits. This is intolerable.
        It is therefore my task to seek to speed up the process of capitalist collapse and replacement with decentralized anarchist socialism wherever possible. Since the current system is already in the beginning stages of decline and immenent collapse, I make it my task to find the beginnings of the cracks in the dam and concentrate my limited energies on these points of weakness.
        My tools are many, including this here electronic computer. I have no compunctions against using capitalist tools against the oppressors. My purpose is to defeat and forestall the declared purpose of the corporate oligarchy, i.e. continually expanding obscene profits at the expense of the environment and the living beings that inhabit it. I do this by making sure that ecoraping is as expensive a proposition as possible.
        To say that I am unpopular in some sectors of the population is an understatement. I have been photographed, videotaped, slammed to the ground, stomped on, verbally assaulted, arrested, thrown in jail with vomiting drunks, assailed in print, defamed, defiled and derided. My proudest moment was when the United States Coast Guard, prompted by the FBI, stationed a Coast Guard cutter in Prince William Sound to protect Exxon workers from “Earth First! terrorists. I have been denied access to Canada on several occasions while attempting to leave Alaska. When I had a phone, it was monitored. I am frequently visited by “maiden aunts” and “grandmothers” inquiring about my activities of late. I have generated enough government paperwork to account for a sizable grove of unfortunate trees.
        As I stood on the oil-soaked shore of Montague Island, in Prince William Sound on September 15, 1989, I could only think of the words of Shakespeare, “Forgive me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am so gentle with these butchers.” (Sorry for the misquote, Bill, I don’t have the words in front of me) From that moment I dedicated my life to the end of corporate tyranny.
        If you would like to join me and protect your corner of the world, I would be honored to share what I have learned these past seventy years. Much of what I know is in print, available in legitimate book stores. I can only offer what I have learned from personal experience.
Send a message, bang a drum, send up smoke signals and I will include you in this mailing.
        Long live the weeds and the wilderness!
        GWH