Letters to the Editor
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Intentions and civil disobedience--an opportunity
I've posted several letters here noting the unconstitutionality of using environmental intention by the government as a (direct or indirect) sentence enhancer or as an excuse for spy techniques.
But the government is handing a new tactic to people interested in real and effective civil disobedience.
Civil disobedience is an appeal to a higher law (like the constitution) or authority (like religious or other moral system) by breaking a lower law. That law may either in itself be a contradiction to the higher law or be a valid law (eg against trespass) that in turn supports the targeted activity. Effective civil disobedience can't really be covert--it depends on people going to jail as a way to pit their consciences against the powers enforcing the targeted law. Skillful civil disobedience puts its people in jail for the smallest offenses that maximally illustrate its cause.
This arson was ineffective in two ways: It didn't really stop the targeted activity. It didn't really focus on attention on the activity. And it required a large offense (arson of an expensive facility) with a moderately small ethical statement.
The government, by stressing the environmental intentions of the arsonists, is in fact doing much of the work they should have done themselves. It is stressing that they were not out for personal gain, but risking their freedom for what they thought was good for society.
But the arsonists are dumb because they never had to burn the building down at all nor serve sentences for arson per se. If INTENTION is itself a crime, then they need only make feeble real efforts to burn the building down. Or, to block its use. They needed to publicize their intentions, make it clear their environmental motivations, provoke the authorities into jailing them for those environmental intentions, and then use the trials and jail sentences as their platforms.
The government, by using language like "ecoterrorism" and unconstitutional methods in pursuing and prosecuting environmentalists is handing those same environmentalists a huge tool. If they only knew how to use it. The model should actually be the tree-sitting protests that worked, not the Weather Underground covert violence that doesn't.
And maybe that's why the feds are targeting Briana Waters for special treatment. They are more afraid of her association with tree-sitters than with arsonists.
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Non-violent action vs. destructive action
I'd argue that the U. Washington arson was ineffective in more ways than that:
1) the target of political protest wasn't a plain and undeniable ecosystem killer. Genetic modification of organisms isn't per se an environmental evil in the minds of most people, including myself. In fact, some of us think that genetic modification has the potential to help ecosystems recover- those damaged by the recent depredations of invasive species, for instance. Movements of civil disobedience are most effective when they confront the most blatantly abusive practices- examples that have the ability to persuade even the formerly neutral or apathetic.
Unlike, say, the effects of acid mine waste, or the practice of clear-cutting up to a river's edge, where it is generally agreed that the effects are harmful, the potential ecological effects of various types of genetic modification are still matters of dispute in the scientific community. And no one is likely to be swayed in that dispute by a handful of radical activists who insist that genetic engineering research is inevitably an environmental evil- even if their ranks include members with PhDs in genetics and biochemistry (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here, in lieu of stereotyping eco-rads as comprised exclusively of the scientifically unlettered.) Summarily blockading research isn't how scientific debates get conducted, unless someone is taking the medieval era Roman Catholic Church as a role model.
2) "But the arsonists are dumb because they never had to burn the building down at all nor serve sentences for arson per se. If INTENTION is itself a crime, then they need only make feeble real efforts to burn the building down."
This is naivete of heroic proportions. Once fire gets involved as part of "direct action" in even the most trivial way, activists are flirting with felony arson charges. At minimum, it's vandalism and property destruction- two practices noticably absent from disciplined mass movements of people willing to be beaten and jailed for their cause, such as the civil rights movement or the Gandhian non-cooperators- or, for that matter, the tree sitters in the forests of the Northwest.
Effective civil disobedience movements are calm, centered, steadfast, and ethical. It's also worth noting that as a rule, they can't be broken through betrayals, either, because the participants have nothing to hide- although there are exceptions, like sanctuary and draft resistance movements. In considering possibilities like those, I'd advise anyone thinking of getting involved to apprise themselves of the risks and be prepared to do their own time if necessary- all of it- rather than putting it on anyone else.
The poster's point that "effective civil disobedience can't really be covert" is well-taken. Activists who seek the attention and approval of the general public for the justice of their cause don't need to sneak around plotting in secret. To the contrary- for best results, civil disobedience needs to attract reasonably large numbers of participants, and to convince people that their actions are last resorts due to having exhausted other avenues of appeal. Rightly or wrongly, the public is tired of actions that they perceive as merely publicity stunts by trivial handfuls of people- unless the sacrifice of the activists is dramatic; the target is clear; the protesters emphasize maturity, responsibility and clarity of intent with a minimum of rancor; and the message and goals have a clear purpose. The arena of protest needs to be tactically focussed to generate a maximum of media attention, but unless all of those other factors are working, the overall effect is more likely to be negative than positive.
Building arsons fit none of those conditions. Creative civil disobedience tactics like tree-sitting fit all of them. It's a sad irony that the tree-sitting protest on Watch Mountain mentioned in the Salon article evidently saved 28,000 acres of wilderness and watershed- about 43 square miles, by my calculation. By contrast, the outcomes of the arson conspiracy that burned the U. Washington Center for Urban Horticulture were entirely negative.