Evironmental Terrorism In Maryland

[steve hiker]

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE WOULD HAVE COME WITH OR WITHOUT THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION...THE REVOLUTION WAS A FINICIAL/PERSONAL AGENDA OF A RELETIVELY FEW IN NUMBER WHO MARKETED THEIR CAUSE WELL.

Interesting. So the founding fathers really weren't patriots, they were just selfish capitalists taking the law into their own hands through sedition and acts of terrorism.

Why is it that I hear a British accent when I read grandview's post?

[weary]

....I have not yet heard any word that an environmental group has commited this arson as yet. .....Second, you mention some battles are lost but many are won. Damn, few have been won. .....

No influential environmental group burned down these buildings. There are always a few nuts who appear from time to time. But I have worked with scores of groups over the decades. None think that destroying things is a useful tactic.

Secondly, victories are never total and never final, but with the exception of the past four years the quality of our environment has steadily, albeit, slowly improved.

I see the evidence every morning when I look out my front window. The marsh and tidal cove that when I moved here in 1962 was a stinking open sewer, is now filled with waterfowl on fall days and crowded with fishermen all summer.

I spent the day with a group worrying about development in the wildlands of Maine. Thirty years ago we would have been arguing about passing a law. Today we argued about how best to use the law to minimize the likely impact.

A decade ago I served on a Governor's Committee created to set land acquisition priorities in Maine. After months of deliberations, I argued for a resolution that called for a 20 percent increase in protected land within 5 years and urged a doubling by 2020. We wrangled over the issue for hours. Finally and reluctantly the group agreed. The state has already far surpassed these goals.

Progress is being made. Victories are possible. Our strongest enemies are those who refuse to take part because they believe, "Damn, few (victories)have been won," and those who salve their consciences by saying, "I can't afford to give."

For the latter, a more accurate characterization for many would be "I don't want to give up my fun time, or to give up any luxuries to help."

Weary

[grandview]

Interesting. So the founding fathers really weren't patriots, they were just selfish capitalists taking the law into their own hands through sedition and acts of terrorism.

Why is it that I hear a British accent when I read grandview's post?

good grief dude...i'm from west virginia....and no that's not what i said...i don't plan on breaking it down any easier for you.

[whitedove]

Weary,

Awesome post, I couldn't agree more.

Isreal,

You made a very good point.

Grandview,
I thought your statement was very understandable and most assurdly true, some of us got it.


I would like to know how many on here who are advocating violence and stating terrorism is the only way now to save the planet...actually do anything such as recycle, walk/take a bus instead of taking the car or do without their factory made gear.

[Jack Tarlin]

I wish that when people wanted to engage in America bashing they could at least get their facts straight. Thanks to Tim for attempting to provide Wookie with a badly needed history lesson. In point of fact, there were quite a few nations that permitted slavery after it was abolished here, but why let a few facts get in your way, eh Wook? In fact, there are STILL nations in Africa that enslave others but these are human rights violations inflicted by Arabs or Blacks, so this means we won't be seeing Wook too indignant about it. And of course, the practice of slavery existed in Africa LONG before European exploration and colonialization, i.e. slavery was decidedly NOT introduced to that continent by insidious Britons, Dutchmen and others, as Wookie would like us to believe. In point of fact, the practice had existed there fur untold centuries.

In another post, where Wookie objected to me commenting that I thought arson and destruction of private property was a bad thing, he got personal, and said "I know from reading your posts that you value trees, animals, lichens, and ecosystems much lesss than myself."

Good Lord, what a monumentally pompous and arrogant thing to say.

In point of fact, Wook, you know as much about me what I value as you seem to know about world history. Which is to say not much.

And you seem to value, or at least approve of the actions of vandals, criminals, arsonists, and night-raiding cowards.

All in all, Wook, I'll keep my values and you keep yours. But thanx for writing.

[Rocks 'n Roots]

And you seem to value, or at least approve of the actions of vandals, criminals, arsonists, and night-raiding cowards.

A perfect British description of the men who founded our nation. I agree they had a virgin country to exploit and had, at least, minor influences of self-interest involved in their forming of our nation and its principles. Saving the world from overdevelopment and destruction of its biosphere is a much more insidious and difficult act of altruism, I agree.


Anyone notice how those who focus on the criminality of the act fail to ever mention the state of our environment due to our main GNP object - that is, sprawl? And how that is relevant to the act? Don't fool yourself that our business status quo doesn't intend to destroy most remaining open space left in America. They just can't admit it directly without using their diversion or dependency tricks...


A follow through article today mentioned that investigators discovered 6 failed devices in 6 other houses. They aren't describing them because of the investigation.

The one resident who lived in the affected area said she had no fear of personal harm and "if they were trying to hurt her they would have".

There were several black residents living in another part of the development who said they have never been made to feel unwelcome in the town...

[Tha Wookie]

I wish that when people wanted to engage in America bashing they could at least get their facts straight. ...thanx for writing.

America bashing? Does it really make a huge difference if we were dead last or third from last? You need to jack your soapbox up a couple inches.

No comments on the rest of the post? I didn't expect any.

[whitedove]

Rocks 'n Roots,

Are you British perchance?

Again you have brought up the sprawl, which I agreed was a problem but I also asked you what do you think is, in your logic, a way to handle the situation. You have apparently thought alot about it and must have an opinion on what to do. I am very interested in hearing your theory on how to best counter the sprawl.

[Tha Wookie]

In fact, there are STILL nations in Africa that enslave others but these are human rights violations inflicted by Arabs or Blacks, so this means we won't be seeing Wook too indignant about it.

Hey Jack, I believe that there are many other places with horrendous human rights. But what's point here? Do I have to talk about every single case of social unjustice to in one post?

I spend a lot of time down there in the islands, and those are the stories I know as an example that relate the fact that extreme measures of civil disobediance shouldn't be vilified on their own without a real understanding of the contextual situation. Many times in history these events have been for the bettermen of equality and life in general.

Questioning is American. Action is American. Revolution is American.

Burning random homes is not American. But we should not be so full of fear that we do not know when to light the fields.

"In another post, where Wookie objected to me commenting that I thought arson and destruction of private property was a bad thing, he got personal, and said "I know from reading your posts that you value trees, animals, lichens, and ecosystems much lesss than myself."' -Jack

Sorry if I hurt your feelings there Jack, you're right I really shouldn't have assumed that your posts represent who you really are in person.

Either ways, I apogize if that was too personal. Seriously. I know people have said to personal insults to you on this site, but I was't trying to be personal like that.

[Blue Jay]

Progress is being made. Victories are possible. Our strongest enemies are those who refuse to take part because they believe, "Damn, few (victories)have been won," and those who salve their consciences by saying, "I can't afford to give."

Great post Weary. I never said we should not do whatever is possible to stop the destroyers, but you are correct I do tend to forget the victories. Another example is the Hudson River. When I was growing up it was unbelievable on summer days. You could not even get near it because of the smell. Every industry dumped toxic waste into it and every town along it dumped its sewer into it untreated. I still wouldn't drink it, but it is light years better. Thank you for reminding me, but I can't help feeling with the destruction of the EPA, as pathetic as it was, and as rabid the public is in favor of environmental destruction for money, things are going backward.

[wacocelt]

Lordy you folks DO go on...
No matter what flavor icing you try and put on it, the people who set the fire in those houses, lived in or otherwise were WRONG and dreadfully so. I speak from experience about being wrong in matter of the law. There is always a rational alternative to commiting a crime.
I consider myself to be somewhat liberal in my personal and political views, but you threaten my family or friends with a firebomb and the police will be called after you've gotten your gasoline enema, boglands and civil suits be damned.
Todays America has too many people willing to sit at home and piss and moan about the ills of existence, post absolutely frivolous complaints on HIKING websites about how 'Racist Southern Babtists from Alabama recited the 10 Commandments while clubbing baby seals which were interfering with oil drilling in Alaska' when they have absolutely no idea how nor intention of lifting a finger to do anything about it.
To be concerned about Amercia is to be involved in America. You don't like somehting that goes on, do something to change it.

Just keep in mind, if the thing you decide to do involves an act of violence upon an innocent, there are lots of folks out there more than happy to do a few years in prison for hanging you by your feet from a tree and flaying you like a deer. Merry Christmas. Be well.

[Israel]

To be concerned about Amercia is to be involved in America. You don't like somehting that goes on, do something to change it.

Well said!

[Rocks 'n Roots]

Just keep in mind, if the thing you decide to do involves an act of violence upon an innocent, there are lots of folks out there more than happy to do a few years in prison for hanging you by your feet from a tree and flaying you like a deer. Merry Christmas. Be well.

Sounds like redneck talk just anxious to get out the possee for a lynchin' and forget everything else. I love posters who reprimand others about posting these things on a "HIKING" list - forgetting the whole time that the AT is all about conservation as the new AT CONSERVANCY emphasizes. These people should be reminded that they are out of place saying these things on a site that is based on a conservancy.

How do we curb sprawl? Well, a good way to start would be to recognize the AT for what it is and back it. Calling it a hiking place doesn't do that. Backing development of the corridor as being fair and reasonable doesn't. Attacking the political beliefs of those who stand up for Trail definition and protection doesn't. Nor does taking a right-wing talk show posture on conservancy websites in obvious defiance of what that website's object is about. Not too difficult is it?

MacKaye wasn't stupid. He saw this coming. Why do you think he put the challenge of the AT Project forth? So people could hike and form social clubs from which they shun persons who back MacKaye's perspective? It's obvious from his writings what it was meant to do. It's doing it right now. Some people just refuse to see it because they are afraid to question their comfortable concepts. The same concepts that are currently melting and denuding earth while they fiddle with Limbaugh crap and self-interested chat.


What do you do to people who kill "innocents" with reversals of clean air protections?

[Jack Tarlin]

Wookie---

I appereciate your latest statements, and I thank you for making them. All too often, this site DOES get personal, and I'm as guilty as anyone else.

However, I really did object to the comment about my environmental "values."

*Just outta curiousity, Wook: Do you own an automobile, or use one regularly? I don't.

*Have you flown in an airplane in the last twelve years? I haven't.

*When not travelling, do you live in a modern home, with electronic appliances, gadgets, amenities? I have exactly FIVE in my home, Wook, two lamps, a radio, a refrigerator, and a battery operated CD player. So which of us do you think uses up more of the world's precious natural resources?

*Do you have power and plumbing in your home Wook? Up until a month ago, I was living in a cabin that had neither.


The point of these comments is this----it's all well and good for someone to say that somebody else doesn't value trees, animals, lichens, and ecosystems, but I'm willing to bet that when it comes to using up the world's
resources or burning up fossil fuels, I daresay I do a whole lot less damage than a great many other folks, including, most likely, Wookie. I bet W. doesn't think much of the money grubbing power-and-light utility company
that operates in his neck of the woods, but I'm sure willing to bet he relies on it, and requires a lot more from it on a daily basis, than I do from mine.

Bottom line is that we should refrain from making personal comments about others when we don't have all the facts.

* * * *

To get back to the original idea of this thread, tho, Wookie also said:

"Burning homes is not American. But we should not be so full of fear that we do not know when to light the fields."

My, what stirring revolutionary bravado. Quick question to Wookie: What if it were YOUR home and fields, eh? What if an individual or group objected to the placement or environmental sensitivity of YOUR house and decided they were morally entitled to destroy it, perhaps while you were still in it.

Would your revolutionary enthusiasm be burning so bright then?

I really doubt it. It'd get kinda hard to stay in touch with the cyber-world and preach revolution when some moron has just torched your desk and computer.

Or are you saying, Wook, that it's OK to know when to light the fields as long as your fields aren't part of the equation? But seriously, I'm curious---are you actually saying that if a group objected to where or how your house was built, then you'd defend and applaud their right to destroy it? If this is the case, I'd like to hear you say it.

And if it's not the case, then you should say that, too.

[Rocks 'n Roots]

It'd get kinda hard to stay in touch with the cyber-world and preach revolution when some moron has just torched your desk and computer

It appears the movement that destroyed those houses deliberately chose incompleted and unoccupied houses to burn. There was another completed section of the subdivision with residents that was left alone. In light of this I consider Jack's words as fetching meanings that are obviously unrelated to the incident. He also completely avoids the earthwide ramifications from which the act originated.


I'd love to live in a cabin. However, as Weary points out, the average non-arsonist public relies upon the grid and its energy infrastructure and encouraged usage. It's this average profile that needs to be worked on as far as earth-friendly power sources.

The average American believes we should be developing eco-friendly energy structures. The Bush administration has been pushing for the opposite...

[minnesotasmith]

"The average American believes we should be developing eco-friendly energy structures."

Even if true, that wouldn't last once he/she figures out that means no air conditioning, no washing machines, clotheslines instead of clothes driers, water only coming by being hauled by hand in buckets from outside, the only heat a woodburning stove that has to be refueled every four hours tops (and you have to go get the fuel for by hand yourself), no electric lighting, no fridge/freezer (except the out-of-doors in the Northern half of the U.S. during the cooler months), and of course no computer/TV/video games/VCR...

Hey, I've actually lived that way for months, so I know what it's about. Fewer Americans would willingly switch to living that way than would consider through-hiking the AT, and all of us know how few people there are like that...

If you really want to stop sprawl and development, I told you in my post above what it would take. Bet most people here prefer sprawl.

[orangebug]

It appears the movement that destroyed those houses deliberately chose incompleted and unoccupied houses to burn. There was another completed section of the subdivision with residents that was left alone. In light of this I consider Jack's words as fetching meanings that are obviously unrelated to the incident. He also completely avoids the earthwide ramifications from which the act originated.

I'd love to live in a cabin. However, as Weary points out, the average non-arsonist public relies upon the grid and its energy infrastructure and encouraged usage. It's this average profile that needs to be worked on as far as earth-friendly power sources.

Now, you don't live in a cabin, but you do live in South Florida. Have you tried to get off the grid and use solar and wind power as others in your region? Have you information about the "movement" and provided that information to law enforcement? Obviously, you must have such information as you understand the earthwide ramifactions fro which the act originated.

Or are you channeling again?

[weary]

[i]Even if true, that wouldn't last once he/she figures out that means no air conditioning, no washing machines, clotheslines instead of clothes driers, water only coming by being hauled by hand in buckets from outside, the only heat a woodburning stove that has to be refueled every four hours tops (and you have to go get the fuel for by hand yourself), no electric lighting, no fridge/freezer (except the out-of-doors in the Northern half of the U.S. during the cooler months), and of course no computer/TV/video games/VCR....

Total nonsense. If we don't begin now that may eventually be the only option. But if society can somehow begin to think rationally, such extreme measures will never be needed.

Weary

[Rocks 'n Roots]

Or are you channeling again?

It's obvious some are capable of serious discussion of sprawl and environmental actions and others are sniping with childish ad hominem taunts...


I don't think this heckler answered the points I made in the last post...

[Tha Wookie]

Jack-


I know the "what if" game, too. When I was a kid, I had this babysitter (she was hot, btw) to whom I held a toy gun up to her leg, and she told me, "don't ever point guns at people."

I responed, "Yeah, what if I did point a gun at you? The leg would be the best place."

She replied, "No, because there is no 'what if'. You NEVER point guns at people." We went back and forth, each saying the same thing over and over.

I learned three things that day: 1) never point guns at people 2) her legs gave me funny feelings 3) "What if" statements aren't very useful when you're arguing an adult.

There is no "What if" in my case. It would never happen. I would never pay money for or move into a place that involved unsustainable design in an endangered ecosystem like this case.

I am pretty unsettled now after moving out of my cabin last year (you can read about it in this thread). I sleep more nights in the woods than I do inside.

Yeah, I do fly, like when I was just in Mexico helping instal an environmental monitoring system for their islands in the Gulf of California under a Packard/Nature Conservancy grant, or when I went this summer out west to hike and promote the American West Coast Trail (www.thawookie.com). I'm flying again to the Virgin Islands soon to continue work on a conservation project and look at some land on an organic farm (Virgin Islands Sustainable Agriculture Institute) that I hope to purchase soon if all goes well. There I hope to get my solar system going (like I said, if it all goes well).

Yes, I have a small truck. Most of the year, it sits, collecting leaves in the bed at my family's house or at a trailhead. You win there - but you still get rides.

About the appliances, you don't have me beat. I have very little -guitar tuner, minidisk, radio, a lamp I made. My computer is one of them, but might probably use it enough to outpower all of your use. Obviously, you use one a lot also. But you must borrow it, like you get rides. (Although I know you do a great deal of walking, and I highly admire that)

My cabin did have plumbing -well water, and own septic. Some of the places I stay have it, some don't.

But so what? It's not even what we were talking about!

You said, "it's all well and good for someone to say that somebody else doesn't value trees, animals, lichens, and ecosystems, but I'm willing to bet that when it comes to using up the world's
resources or burning up fossil fuels, I daresay I do a whole lot less damage than a great many other folks, including, most likely, Wookie"

You just completely changed the subject.

Look, maybe I was wrong about what I said about you not valuing nature as much as I. I already said I was sorry if it felt personal.

It's just that I read you have a ringing tone of resentment on your posts when I or other people talk about "tree-hugging" activities or perspectives (other than the purely political - let's not go there). But those relationships are what I'm talking about. They seem to really bother you, to the point of slanderous name-calling, and charges of anti-Americanism. This makes me think you might not have that strong of a relationship with these things.

I mean, even thought we agree the house-burning was stupid and wrong, you completely ignored the other part of that first post that said, hey, just consider the fact that there was a total annihilation of life there -can't you see that it's not about "terrorism" and being anti-american? To say it again, there was already a breaking and entering and butchering and slaughtering.

I have a real relationship with nature, like I do with people, but even greater (I'm not implying you don't).
Limiting use of natural resources is certainly all good and commendable, but I'm talking about appreciating the intrinsic rights and importance of nature -even to the point that what I do or live bucks, even severely, the social tides.

I stand on the slopes of the Cascades, and listen to the slamming giants amid the chainsaws. I CAN HEAR THEM SCREAM. Everyone can hear it. Yet most choose not to. You have struck me as the latter based on your posts, no offense. But hey, what the hell do I know - you only have two lamps, but I have a hotplate (just kidding, I don't have a hotplate).

Really, I respect the way you live. Thanks for sharing that.