The last few posts were very difficult to write as they involve ideas that belong to everyone... Regarding other animals fate: welfare or abolition. Regarding activism... Passive or aggressive. I've seen how even the heavy-hitters can have heaps of contrary opinions cast on them... I suppose I avoided all that by staying on a flexible fence - Because I really don't have the answers for everyone - Only mine that I admit are often uncertain.
But here I am again, offering two stories that include direct action in an attempt to save life... These stories struck me in a personal way as I wrote here.
Butterfly
In December 1997, Julia Hill climbed a thousand-year-old redwood tree vowing to not come down until it was saved from being clear-cut. She lived 180 feet off the ground for more than two years, galvanizing an already intense dispute over the fate of Northern California's old-growth forests. Wolens' film is a primer on forest issues and direct-action environmentalism, but most of all, it is about the spiritual journey of a determined, articulate woman nicknamed Butterfly who saved an ancient tree she called Luna.
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front explores two of America's most pressing issues — environmentalism and terrorism — by lifting the veil on a radical environmental group the FBI calls America's "number one domestic terrorism threat." Daniel McGowan, a former member of the Earth Liberation Front, faces life in prison for two multimillion-dollar arsons against Oregon timber companies. What turned this working-class kid from Queens into an eco-warrior? Marshall Curry (Oscar®-nominated Street Fight, POV 2005) provides a nuanced and provocative account that is part coming-of-age story, part cautionary tale and part cops-and-robbers thriller.
Again, I have no conclusions as to what can be done to stop the destructive course we humans are on... These are just some solutions others have been forced to take. And until someone shows me a better way - They are heroes to me...
This isn't the post I was going to write about direct action... But it will more than do for what point I was hoping to make.
Like most who seek compassionate alternatives in their lives I would never think of "forcing" anything on anyone. In the first place, I know that any authentic changes people make must come from their own desire in order to be lasting. Secondly... "force", destruction and violence just isn't my style. Oddly enough even before I became aware of hidden injustices that I was participating in... I still always thought myself to be a "peace-nik". If there was conflict, I consistently sought out a rational way through it. After all, violence is never rational... Or is it?
Now there are a few occasions that I recall using physical means as protection... Once even against a large, vicious dog that was attacking my vulnerable dog Midas. It hurt me to do that... I actually kicked the aggressive dog in the face for him to release his bite from my dog... I felt ill at the force that was necessary for me to use.
Even earlier than that... As a tween I remember being over a friend's house whose father (drunk I suppose), took a belt to her in a wild fit of rage. The strap clapped on her small body, even tinier than my own, when a giant, confident voice of indignation rose from within me. With all the strength that my 70 pound body had, I grabbed the man's hand and demanded: "Stop! You're hurting her!" I think he did out of shame...
I think many times injustice requires stern confrontation to put wrong doing in it's place. In the defense of ourselves and of others there is a line we all have that will tolerate "No more!". But with nonhumans it's different. Those lines we all have, become obscured or erased - as these beings who we know are being violated in the most brutal ways - are "possessions". And society's rules and laws say because they "belong" to someone, it is not any one's place to interfere with that "legal" ownership... No matter what they do to their "property".
But society has been wrong before... And not all "laws" are right. So how is it that the best among us still do not come to the direct aid of innocent victims, labeled as "food animals", "lab animals", "fur animals", "production" or "entertainment" animals? How and why do we remain civil with such atrocities going on?
I think I know the answer and it is found in part in these articles. Ironically, the first - Do We Need a Militant Movement to Save the Planet (and Ourselves)? is co-authored by Lierre Keith the writer of the Vegetarian Myth. And the other is written by Mikey Z: Our way of life is the problem In both articles the agreement is that most of us live comfortably where the risks and possible sacrifices incurred in "illegal" dissent might be more than most of us want to make...
Perhaps Peter Young speaking at the 2011 Animal Rights Conference touches on some truth when he suggests we might not fight so hard for nonhumans because of unacknowledged speciesism...
I hope that it is here that I can admit to sometimes being cautious for my own safety and that my courage lacks the follow through that I know the victims deserve.
But like many, what I do as an activist or what happens to me by being such, affects others in my life... When you're alone - You can do what you want. When others love you - It's not that simple... I can't and don't do what my heart tells me I should. I stay within the laws even though I don't respect them... This I think for everyone - Is the hardest thing about knowing what justice is but not taking direct action to make it so.
So... The point I wanted to make was that none of us really knows what will be the catalyst or the breaking point that lets us cross "that line" beyond lawful (peaceful) advocacy... But for those who do - I hope we all support them as the heroes they truly are!
