A meditation on violence and environmentalism

Take A Second Look At Eco-Arson Case, Says Ore. Court

By Dan Richardson, 2-20-07

What does it take to become a political prisoner? A harsh sentence handed down for a politically motivated property crime?

If so, then Jeff “Free” Luers fits the definition. A radical Eugene activist, Luers received a nearly 23-year prison sentence for torching three pickups and trying to ignite a gas tanker in 2000. No one was hurt and Luers’ co-defendant (Craig “Critter” Marshall) pleaded out to a 5 1/2-year sentence, leaving environmental activists to decry the surprisingly harsh sentence for Luers.

But if a sentence’s harshness makes one a martyr, Luers will have the chance to become just a plain ol’ criminal. Last week, the Oregon Court of Appeals gave Luers a partial victory on his appeals. The courtordered a lower court judge to resentence Luers, and he may receive as little as a third his original 266-month imprisonment.

What’s not apparent in the few news stories about the case is that Luers was just one of several Eugene-area environmental activists who turned to sabotage and arson. A band of activists turned radical in the 1990s, toppling and torching in opposition to consumerism, corporate power and forest development. Only last year were the radicals apprehended.

Yet, while their actions were off-the-grid, well, so are the government’s. But I digress.

A year ago this January, federal prosecutors in Oregon released a 65-count indictment against 11 people they called “eco-terrorists.” The people, many of them from Eugene, were actually arsonists and saboteurs who — like Luers — never harmed anyone.

What this band of saboteurs did do was conduct a five-year campaign of attacks in the 1990s against 17 government facilities and businesses from Oregon to Colorado.

The first was the 1996 destruction of the Oakridge Ranger Station in the Willamette National Forest in Oregon.

Some say this group of saboteurs acted out of frustration at the ongoing, full-speed-ahead environmental degredation in our culture; others, that this is a logical, violent stepping-up from the monkey-wrenching and tree-sitting practiced by a wider range of forest activists for years. The view of the Oakridge saboteurs teeters between irresponsible anarchism and a frustrated extension of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Was the spree of attacks sparked by Congress’ salvage rider bill allowing logging in old growth forests, as some thought then? Why, then, did it following a mainstream, and successful, environmentalist demonstration at Warner Creek (Oregon) against the salvage rider?

As the federal prosecutor himself said, environmentalists generally opposed such criminal arsons. “Most considered it a ridiculous and fruitless act,” he said.

But if Oakridge was “ridiculous” to even most activists, its success appears to have encouraged future sabotage. Others in the larger circle of saboteurs burned a meat-packing plant in Redmond, Ore., and, most spectacularly, burned down several buildings at a Vail, Col., ski resort.

(There’s a fascinating, timely study to be made here by an ambitious reporter or political scientist of the parallels between this eco-radicalization and violent cells in the anti-abortion and militia movements. One parallel: how violence discredits the larger movement.)

Ultimately, the various eco-attacks failed to stop any of the targeted activities. SUVs continue to be sold by the thousand. The ski resort is rebuilt. What’s more, the radicals provided political ammunition against the green movement as a whole. Fueled by the righteousness of fighting terror (the feds have repeatedly called the saboteurs’ acts “eco-terrorism,” as if arson without injury was the same as a suicide-bombing), prosecutors have sought extraordinary sentences, threatening, in some cases, life terms.

The Luers re-sentencing order is a narrow legal victory, but it may give both sides in the matter some pause. An opportunity to think through the implications of their actions. Or, at least, it should.

I write “both sides,” because at hand here are not one but two radicalized agendas. The eco-arsonists’ is obvious, and criminal. But the government, especially the federal government, has been on a near-crusade, too, doing its damndest to demonize the radicals while also shutting out moderate dissent to its forest and energy policies. It’s
if both sides, convinced of the righteousness of their cause, have rejected moderation, shoved aside restraint, and acted in extreme — and both done violence to their own principles; nonviolent, sustainable social change on one hand, the even-handededness, nonpolitical purity of the law on the other.

Justice and demonization, after all, are strangers. And unusually harsh sentences, especially for politically motivated acts of property damage that cause no injuries, show clearly that all are not equal under the law.

Will the average person even notice if Luers is released in 10 years instead of 20? Or that some other eco-saboteur, perhaps, is sent away longer than most killers? No, surely not. But those in the movement, those with an interest in natural resources, for use or conservation or sustainability, surely will. And this presages more, extremer positions, and an eroding middle ground, just when we need people returning to the middle.

While the arsons and sabotage is criminal and destructive, it is increasingly being matched by federal high-handedness. Just last month, the U.S. Forest Service issued a rule that says it can write management plans for the nation’s 155 national forests without environmental analysis — or even public input. And this, while the Bush Administration refuses to fund public lands’ trail maintenance, slowly choking the forests off from public use and recreation.

At least, recreation that doesn’t include an internal combustion engine.

Pile on the Bush Administration’s continuing to ignore global-warming and energy independence, and you have — well, not justification for more arsons, but the need for more people in the middle to get involved.

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