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“Green” Homes Burned Near Seattle, Earth Liberation Front Implicated
By Matthew Frank, 3-03-08
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| A photograph taken at one of the luxury homes in Seattle's Street of Dreams development. Courtesy of Northwest Property Imaging. | |
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At least three luxury model homes in a suburb north of Seattle were destroyed by fire this morning and a sign implicating the radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front was found at the scene.
The homes were unoccupied in a high-end, green-marketed development on Seattle’s so-called ”Street of Dreams.”
As a KING-5 video shows, the sign purportedly left by ELF read: “Built Green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF” The initials “RCD” refers to “rural cluster development.”
The FBI was investigating the fires as a potential domestic terrorism act, according to the AP. The fires began before dawn and left an estimated $7 million in damages.
Setting the homes ablaze appears to be a malicious backlash against greenwashing, or marketing on the pretense of environmental responsibility. Nationwide, “green” building is the fastest growing sector in an otherwise slumping industry, and its widespread growth has brought questions about the merits of so many “green” claims.
The homes, more than 4,000 square feet in size, were part of last year’s Seattle Street of Dreams luxury home showcase, and all were certified “Built Green.” Built Green is a Washington-based non-profit builders association that promotes environmentally friendly design. The properties, which cost about $2 million each, included green building materials and practices such as “super-insulation,” dual flush toilets, Forest Stewardship Council certified Eco-Timber flooring, and drought-tolerant native grasses, according to Built Green’s website.
ELF’s point, if it is responsible, seems clear: multi-million dollar luxury homes in sprawling suburbs are inherently irresponsible, no matter how “green” they claim to be.
Sandy Dunn, the president of the National Association of Home Builders, said in a statement today: “ELF’s heinous crimes do nothing to further the cause of environmentally sensitive home building, and everything to degrade ELF’s own image in the public eye as a group of violent thugs who seek to damage and destroy property and put human lives in danger.”
Street of Dreams has won NAHB awards for its use of green building technology.
ELF has a history of arson and the New York Times runs through its recent attacks, including the 2001 fires at three location in Suffolk County, Long Island. Three nearly completed houses were burned and spray-painted messages on other houses nearby read “Stop Urban Sprawl,” “If you build it we will burn it,” and “Burn the rich.”
The Seattle Times reports that a $100,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those responsible for today’s fires.
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Comments
ELF is alive and well doing their civic duty. My question is why don't they set fire to all those pollution prone public housing projects that are so inefficient in energy use, and so fouling of the earth, as they, too, are built in what was once the ancient forest.
This is, once again, proof positive that there is no pleasing the anarchist crowd. None. There is no common ground, no middle ground, no room to allow for differing views. They are Right!, God-damned Right!, and that is that. And they are protected species at the fringe of the ecosystem support lobby and the NGO's spending that tax forgiven trust and foundation money.
The best way to end this is to tax the living crap out of fortunes, and keep that money from going to foundations and trusts, where it is grown in earth ruining projects, supports bad people in politics and business. When I think of the Pew Trust, the Sun Oil fortune, highjacked by the far left, I know that tax avoidance process is doing little good for this country. Better that the money is taxed, like Gates and Buffett believe, and the heirs told to go get real jobs and earn their own keep in an increasingly insane world. Let the government piss it away on their own, without the help of TPL, TNC, RMEF, et al. Let the money be pissed away by government on a study, and keep the money flowing to academia, where it might help some kids get an education. This NGO deal is becoming a 5th estate in this country, and governing with financial aid of trust funds, foundations and charitable giving funds, and funds they prevail on a friendly Congress to give them. I hate the prospect of parallel governments, and this arson deal in Seattle is just an expression of discontent by the enforcement wing of the Green Propagandists. And, a real pollution event in and of itself.
When ELF makes all that smoke containing bad gases and particulates, puts it in the air, and then uses that process as a demonstration of disapproval of resource use, all that has happened is that the collective insanity of the left is underlined for all to see. It runs on money. Money is its life blood. It is time to take away that untaxed money, subject it to what working stiffs have to pay to Uncle and all his minions, and if there is any left, let it go to the crazies in vastly diminished amounts to be spent as they wish. It is time for the night riders of terror in the name of Gaia to be horsed by taxed dollars, defended by taxed dollars of other than the working poor, and it is time for their supporters to spend some time in the stocks of media square. Anything less is a disfavor to us all.
I have seen this whole deal before in my life. Weathermen, buildings burned or blown up, smooth talkers with Potemkin village policy positions, villainy painted on transgressors to the True Believer positions, dirty bearded forces for change. And all those twits will end up being your sale administrator, your policy insider to elected lefties, the appointed bureacrat, and you will see them time and again down the road as noble servants of socialism, soldiers in the war on the working taxpayers.
I learned to dislike those people, honestly, in the 60's and 70's, and then they showed up in high positions of government in the late 80' and into the 90's. The carousel is just making another circuit around the center pivot, the endless tape of vigorous youthful disobediance eroding into middle aged middle management in government, the employer of last resort, and the pension at the end of the rainbow in their dotage. Been there, done that, seen it before, same old same old. Too bad this all isn't being done under the rule of Putin at the font of this ideology. The gene pool would end up with some finality for some strains. Tre Arrow would be in some Siberian forest falling trees all day with an axe in exchange for a bowl of borscht, a chunk of black bread, and all the lefty ideology he could soak up, while a chorus sings in the background "I'm in Heaven....."
"This is a major story... it's so large, so pervasive that the jurors could not have heard about it and not been impacted by it," said defense attorney Robert Bloom. "We really are dealing with a major event here."
Well, if she's guilty, here's hoping Ye Judge is impacted upon sentencing.
There value systems haven't been frozen in time like 4th, 5th or whatever generation of Montanans and neighbors.
WWOD?
WWCD?
WWMD?
Your article indicates that these houses were "unoccupied" "model homes" that "were part of last year’s Seattle Street of Dreams luxury home showcase" and leaves the impression that they were not yet sold. Do you happen to know whether the development a
Your article indicates that these houses were "unoccupied" "model homes" that "were part of last year’s Seattle Street of Dreams luxury home showcase" and leaves the impression that they were not yet sold. Do you happen to know whether the development around them was selling well or was it subject to the same credit and value loss problems that are plaguing the housing market across the country? Do you know whether the developer or owners had these homes insured for fire? Is it at all possible that there might be an alternate stop loss motive here that might be completely separate from any genuine environmental motive? I can't tell from the information in your article; it seems like an incomplete story.
So what is the deal? The builders did not buy enough carbon credits and the ELF enforcers were called out? Or is this just plain terrorism? An act of arson just to show the world that they can take something away is terrorism. If this arson is a big "greetings" to the court that will try Tre Arrow, then that is sabotage of the courts, the system of laws we live under.
And I will not buy the crap that Tre is innocent as the day is long. He was named by the people now in jail for prior arsons. He was part of the conspiracy. He was extradited because there is sufficient reason to believe he is a common arsonist and terrorist. Burning property in the night is an act of terror, designed to sway opinion, make people change out of fear. If the court finds him guilty, I hope he spends a long time in some Federal lock up not being free.
People have demonized them so completely there are lower level thinkers who might ask "Why is that even a possibility in anyone's mind?"
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/popupV2.asp?SubID=3581&page=6>itle=FireDestroys'StreetofDreams'Homes&pubdate=03/03/08
Anyone in the world can grab a white sheet and some red markers and scribble some barley legible words and acronyms on it.
What if this turns out to be similar to the situation described below by the Seattle PI's environmental reporter Robert McClure yesterday in his blog:
"On the other hand, let's not forget that we're in a very down real estate market. And it wouldn't be the first time the ELFen folk were accused wrongly. That's exactly what happened in the torching of a Maryland suburb a few years ago. It turned out those who did in the homes were actually a different kind of domestic terrorists - racists angry about black folk moving into the area. And on top of that, ELF is a group for which the description 'loosely organized' goes way too far toward the organized part. That moniker could be grabbed my basically anyone."
What will the National Association of Home Builders' press release say if something similar happened in this case? And what will the media do about all the "eco-terrorists burn down homes" press stories already out there?
We have a decent judicial system in this country and last time I checked arson was a serious crime, as it clearly should be. I'm sure the investigators will investigate and the judicial system will hold the person(s) who burned down these unoccupied, model homes accountable and justice will be served.
But I must cackle just a little when the director of what is an evolution of Earth First jumps on this angle, and also laugh a bit when he's citing the eco-apologist "reporter" Robert McClure. Wonder if Joel Connelly is right behind. Pshaw.
Apparently not, Dave.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/353415_joel03.html
Federal investigators said Tuesday they had uncovered no clear leads on how arsonists lit the fires that destroyed three luxury homes and damaged two others in a suburb outside Seattle.
The only definitive clue was a spray-painted sheet found at the scene of the Monday's pre-dawn fires bearing the initials of the Earth Liberation Front, Kelvin Crenshaw, special agent in charge of the Seattle office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told a news conference near the crime scene north of Woodinville, about 15 miles northeast of Seattle.
"The only thing that is consistent to this point with what we know as an ELF fire is the banner," Crenshaw said, adding that it had been sent to an FBI lab for testing.
Crenshaw said investigators had found no evidence that incendiary devices were used to set the fires, contrary to a report from a local fire chief the day before.
"There were no devices recovered," Crenshaw said, noting that investigators had yet to go into two homes that were spared.
"It would appear the motive and possibly the way these fires were set were with available combustibles" such as paper or wood, he said.
Authorities were not ruling out the possibility that accelerants were used in the fires, and will consider other motives besides ecoterrorism as the investigation progresses, said Dave Gomez, assistant special agent in charge of the Seattle FBI office.
Now, can the plutocrats who so successfully re-framed your solution as the "Death Tax" see the error of their ways and join the battle to defund the radical foundations? Or will personal greed and concern for their offspring blind them against doing the Right Thing?
Did he mean his house?
Thanks for the update on Thick Joel, Matt. So Sierra is beating on their best Republican buddy? But they're nonpartisan.
TVA, you ain't related to B Von Alten, is ya? Wow, would that be a small world or what.
Never mind that avoiding the death tax is why these foundations happen in the first place....to shelter assets from the death or income taxes through "charitable" entities, many of which sure as heck ain't.
So, not to the manor born, I have sort of slogged my way to adipose and thinned hair by work and my intense focus which lasts until I get bored, an indeterminate length of time. And then I find another windmill.
My dislike for the trust puppy type began in college, where the preppies liked to dabble in drugs, some harder than a wedding prick. And trend setters that they were, other camp followers were entrained on the same journey. All end up addicted, and in trouble. The trust puppy gets hauled off to rehab camp or where ever to dry out, and the poor schmuck from Malta ends up a homeless junkie, with a ruined life. The trust puppy gets to pass go, collect $20 million, and life is just swell because trouble is bothersome, but enough dollars will flatten the seas of family or public discontent with his or her behavior. It is not class envy, but reality. It is how it works. Winners and losers. When the trustafarians are into enviro, blue collar people lose. That makes my ire rise.
So now we have seekers believing they have the divine answer to all problems campaigning for wilderness or public housing or medical care for those who don't work paid for by those who do, and the trust is excepted. They use the money to facilitate change, and any change produces winners and losers, and nobody gives a shit for the losers. Lip service, maybe, but no real committment. This is the USA, where there has been no committment to anything since WWII, unless it was "get ahead, and it don't make no nevermind who you step on to get there."
I have no end to friends my age (65+) who are in, or have been in, terribly nasty sibling fights over family treasure at the end of the treasure builder's life. Sisters lobbing lawyers at brothers, and vice versa. And money is at the center of the argument. I have a friend whose sister drove their dying father back to Glendive to see his rented out ranch one more time, and while there, had him change the will and leave it all to her, piss on the brothers. Better the frigging government got the most of it, and the siblings can fight over the silver and the ceramic frog collection. The acrimony and distrust, the spectacle of the asset brawl at the end, the attempts at trust changings, all that is so wrong and so distasteful that I am agreeing with Gates and Buffett that heirs ought to go make their own way in the world. And, not be out there messing with others, using the tax forgiven trust money to make winners and losers because they can. Surely, they can get jobs just like the rest of the world, especially with all the education available to them, plus the nice stipend they might have been left. But to control a fortune to make life changes for people they don't know or care about, that is too much. If the Sierra Club needs money, they ought to sell more coffee table books and calendars. I am tired of the court cases where the government has a lawyer, the tax forgiven NGO has lawyers, and the poor dillwad trying to make a living has one, too, who is billing hundreds of dollars an hour as the dillwad tries to keep something the others want to take.
If the government ends up with enough lawyers, enough courts, they really do have the horsepower to take it all from "free" Americans. It will work just like Candidate Senator Edwards made it work for him: If you lose, you pay them and me. If you win, you pay me. The NGO and the US Govt go on their merry way, because the taxes on the guy who won or lost will be paying their lawyers. We can't whip the govt., but we sure as hell can take away the trust and foundation tax breaks, and use that money to make Obama's "changes." ouch. Or whoever wins. They will spend it all and then some.
It might be worth it for the insurance companies to go ahead and pay the claims just to further demonize the environmentalists. It sure is not seen as advantageous by them to have a thriving environmental movement.
All corporations have taken the position that environmentalism is anathema to capitalism...
There's a pattern there, I just haven't figured it out yet.
Seven years to go to trial, and she's accused of being the "look out."
Must be quite the case against her?!
My operating assumption is that any "anarchist" or "ecoterrorist" group with one or more members from "good upbringing" has in its membership multiple government agents, and that those agents are most likely the strongest proponents of destructive acts in the group.
Standard operating procedure for 4 decades or so, at least.
The Bush/Cheney administration has upped the ante, however. If you're a "suspected terrorist" you can now be held in (or "rendered to") a black ops prison and tortured until you confess to whatever. Good thing for Ms. Waters she's not a Muslim, and that the crime in question was in May and not October.
As for bearbait's risable rant about those more privileged than him, all I can say is it's never too late to have a happy childhood. Get some hugs, man. People with too much money can do altruistic or selfish things with it, whether they earned it the old fashioned way, or inherited it.
I believe it was Ben Harper who coined the phrase "Now I'm going to burn one down"...judging by his tour sales, his house is surely worth more than $2 mil.
Great article, Matt!
The 2001 until today trial deal for Ms. Waters is just the legal system and the time from the incident. Defense lawyers can stall things, drag them on and on. After all, they are billing us for the indigent defense.
There is nothing noble about arson. ELF is a burner outfit. That they have been infiltrated to successful prosecutions is a good deal, and I would not want it any other way. If you think that youthful anarchy is permissible, don't get your tightie whiteys in twist when they burn something near and dear to you. Ask some of the people who worked at the Oakridge (WillametteNF) Ranger Station who lost a lifetime of research into butterflies, snakes, whatever, and the historical artifacts of the forest history, if they think ELF arson is a wonderful thing. Those people lost personal gear and had to prove their loss. All the lost photos, aerials of projects and historical condition, documentation of forest health and diversity was incinerated. We all lost something in that directed fire. That the Detroit Ranger Station did not also burn was only due to faulty ingnition mechanics, but the fuels and device was there. I live in Oregon very near where the Boise Cascade offices were burned to the ground. My friends and neighbors are on that volunteer fire department at risk at every fire.
I hope that Ms. Waters has a fair, just trial, and however it ends, justice was served. Same for Tre Arrow...let's see---the arrow was the King's log and tree brand in the US before our freedom was gained. Hmmmm. And to make an arrow, you must cut rounds from a log, split them into arrow bolts, and then make the arrows...So he must be the King of England's arrow smith?
The untaxed transfer of wealth to another generation dulls the competitiveness of our people and economy. Further, that money has been used to promote mischief, in my opinion, and has been used as a way to circumvent the legislative process, the funding of administrative action outside the review of Congress. I also have a problem with that money now buying NGO's seats at the table not available to the public at large. To lobby for a goal is one thing, but to be at the table helping construct the process and the result, is another. If I remember right, that was the whole of the evilness of Cheney, et al, as it was claimed the oil industry sat at the table and wrote the policy. If it is wrong for Cheney, (I believe it was), then it is wrong for NGOs. The best way to rein in their power is to choke their money supply from foundations and trusts, which orginate as tax avoidance mechanisms. It is right to not tax money to a church as it should not be a government way to keep money from a church or direct money to a church. NGO's are not churches. Are not religion.
And as I said previously, the wealth transfer is so wrought with litigation amongst heirs that we could vastly reduce that pain by taxing a lot of it away. Anybody can use a million bucks. Nobody needs ten million. Or a billion. Use it to reduce the deficit.
I am probably wasting air because the masses believe Obama will make those changes...or some kind of changes...at least he is for change...he will change things...bring change..got five ones for a five spot? 5 nickels for a quarter?
I favor appropriate estate taxation. It needs indexing, and reasonable provision for real estate and business assets. The approach taken in the last revision, to have it change (almost) year-to-year for a decade and then snap back to the previous law was legislation at its worst: fiscally irresponsible, logistically burdensome, and delaying, rather than making basic decisions.
I in no way support or condone acts of sabotage against property, or intimidation or violence against persons. I find good reason, however, to question authority, and to speak in favor the "soooo yesterday" rule of law that our nation was built upon, applied not just to citizens, but also to our government and its agencies. Had I been closer to being "burned" figuratively or literally, I imagine I would lean toward greater authoritarianism.
I am not willing to use (or accept) caricatures to dismiss anyone who has benefited from the work of previous generations, as indeed we all have, even if unequally, nor to dismiss organizations (whether governmental or non-governmental) based on how tax law has been manipulated to their favor, or not.
And finally, I think your categorical acceptance of "church" and "religion" as worthy of tax advantage is perhaps not well thought out. It seems quite odd that you should be happy to tar every NGO and then turn around and piously nod at church as "OK." Bit of magical thinking, that.
Or the conservation easement scam. Rich dude buys the ranch for $5 million. Immediately signs a conservation easement to not subdivide, which allows him to devalue his purchase by the development value on neighboring property, which in turn is shown as a loss on the income tax form. He used passive income to buy the place (Joe Sixpack has earned income and thus pays SSI tax, unemployment tax, on every earned dollar), and then gets to write off most of what he spent and avoid the tax on the income he bought the place with. Next the depreciation schedule, the tax credits for wetlands or whatever environmental exclusions he can use, and what has reallly happened is wage earners paid for his amenity ranch and will never set foot on their purchase.
Yep. I have it in for NGOs. Too much power over government. The Nature Conservancy is the Halliburton of Green. And I knew I was right when Ducks Unlimited's leader said saving habitat, not making ducks to shoot, was their mission.
There are only so many companies to work for in top management. Now we NGOs providing those top management jobs and salaries. The stunner was when Goodwill in Oregon paid their CEO more than a half million a year, plus a bonus that put him over a million. Excessive. We are into excess in these United States, that leads to ruin. Always does. So my conservative self advocating to take the top off fortunes is perhaps wacky, but heartfelt. I talked to a kid I taught to drive because his Dad, my boss, had not taken the time. He was too important. Well, important Dad died, with a pretty new wife, and left a lot of money to his kids. The new wife has now spent almost 4 years trying to take it away. I talked to him last night because they were due in court last week for a final deal. Wrong. She is now suing the executor, which brings the whole deal to a halt. It would have been so much easier if each kid could have gotten a set sum, and the widow step mom the same, and Uncle Sam the remainder. As it how stands, lawyers will get more than the heirs. Better the government get it. Clients are no more than remoras nowadays. Surviving on the orts and detritus of shark feeding.
Inheritance is the ruination of all too many. Tax avoidance by trusts and foundations means the power of that money never ceases which leads to a de facto royalty. Trusts and foundations can be and are highjacked by trustees into uses that would not have been condoned by the generator of the money so long ago. That they provide for mischief, control of research and academic pursuit, set citizen against citizen, seems to me to be counterproductive to our society and nation. I would like to see that money go into the Treasury, and let the next generation make their own way, develop new means to a fortune. And I would welcome any who would like to set me straight to go right ahead on 'er. Shoot me down. I do listen.
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