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ELF and collateral damage

What I'd like to discuss with you is the issue of "collateral damage." So let me start with your defense of the action and in particular, with the way you addressed "lie #2." You are the second person defending [ELF's burning of the UW Center for Urban Horticulture] who dealt with the problem of "others" being affected by "blaming the victim". Yes, of course the folks in the other labs who were not working on GE were foolish not to have backups of their data. After all, there could always have been an accidental fire. But their equipment, their experimental specimens, etc. they could not protect in this way. Nor was this fire an accident.

I have no intent on passing judgment on the action per se. But ELF has certainly been remiss in letting the world know what its "policy" will be with regard to "collateral damage," a topic unfortunately not addressed in their statement of principles. What responsibility do they accept for accidental collateral damage (bound to happen every now and then) and to what extent they either do or do not feel any obligation to try to avoid collateral damage in the first place.

The problem is, unless some clear statement to the contrary is forthcoming, everybody is going to assume that ELF feels justified in proceeding against a target in total disregard of almost certain collateral damage to third parties. If that's the case, well then people who have supported ELF actions in the past will have to make up their own minds whether they continue to do so. But if it's not, if ELF wants people to treat the collateral damage as something they did not intend, an unfortunate "shit happens," then they need at the very least to express a public "sorry" to the third parties affected. Defenses such as yours don't help because they obscure the need for ELF to take decisive action on this one way or the other.

For the Earth,

Michael D Novack

The media has pointed out that when you set a fire, you have no control over where and what it burns. That's true. And you're right that we all must make a choice as to whether or not to support what the ELF did. Personally, I don't. My choice is to work in alternative media, and my goal is to tell as much of the truth as I can. That's what I'm doing.

Hot On ETS!

Thank you so much for the real story. Ever since the fire at the Center for Urban Horticulture occurred, I have been waiting for someone to print an explanation. I knew there was more to the story than the Seattle Times, Post-Intelligencer, and of course the UW's University Week had to say. Readers of these publications were insulted (or should have been) at the simplistic presentation of the story: that ELF was wrong, there was no genetic modification, what a terrible tragedy, and aren't these environmentalists wackos? After all, they used gasoline to set the fire.

I knew that stance was rubbish from the beginning, but I did not read it in print until your last issue. I truly appreciate Maria Tomchick telling the whole story. The mainstream press ignored all true issues in a most blatant way. We need all the facts, whether the press agrees with those facts or not.

--Patricia Devine, Seattle

Salutations from Mexico

Hi, have some libertary salutes from mexico, I am a 17 years anarchist who wants to interchange experiences, information, zines, newspapers, photos and more WITH more libertary, autonomists and syndicalist groups. I participated in the manifestation with the nonviolent direct action group against the world economic forum in Cancun, where we were seriously hit and kicked on before arrested and tortured, but we're here again! Here I send you all some photographs from that battle and I hope someday we can interchange more experiences and information. Fuck Trotskysm. Write to ludovicoditimotio@hotmail.com.

--Jorge Rodriguez

An Anonymous Tip

It is my understanding that there may emerge in the press information about other street stops by Officer Greg Neubert.

Neubert was the subject of a Washington Supreme Court decision stemming from his role as an undercover cop in a buy-bust operation in which he wound up shooting the alleged drug seller--State v. Brown, 140 Wn 2d 456 (2000).

He also figured in three unpublished Washington Court of Appeals decisions involving traffic stops, searches, and drugs:

State v. Anderson, No. 34728-4-I, issued 20 May 1996

State v. Davis, No. 39059-7-I, issued 22 September 1997

State v. Kelly, No. 39123-2-I, issued 17 February 1998

--Anon., forwarded by Dan Merkle, Seattle