Hanging from bridges - irresponsible or legitimate protest?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

While their friends stopped a truck loaded with 40 burned-black pine logs from the Bitterroot National Forest, two Earth First! protesters attached ropes to the rig and lowered themselves over the Madison Street Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, dangling above the Clark Fork River and unfurling a banner decrying "globalization." The protest, aimed at salvage logging in the Bitterroot forest, earned criminal charges for seven members of Wild Rockies Earth First!, two of whom face felony charges because their stunt endangered rescuers' lives.
www.missoulian.com/articles/2002/06/20/export12912.txt



Eye witness report of action at bridge over the Aubonne
by Irish activists involved in action at bridge over Aubonne Tue, Jun 3 2003, 11:37am
A description of what actually happened at the action on the bridge on the Geneva-Lausanne motorway, from the point of view of 7 Irish activists who participated in the action.
We arrived at the bridge at about 5am. It is a motorway bridge over the river Aubonne on the Geneva- Lausanne motorway.
We stayed under the bridge, preparing our banners and climbing equipment. Everything was ready by about 7 am. We were waiting to hear,by mobile phone, when the convoy of G8 delegates were leaving from Geneva. The plan was to suspend a rope across the bridge with one person attached to each end. This would make it impossible for traffic to continue on from Geneva to Lausanne. The other side of the motorway was not blocked.
The others involved in the action were to go up onto the bridge first, stop the traffic and give the climbers time to get in place.
At about 10.30 we got the news that the convoy was on its way and the motorway exits and entrances at Geneva and Lausanne had been blocked off by police. 10 people went up onto the bridge and ran along the hard shoulder to the Geneva end of the bridge.
We had three banners: One said "Vous arretez ici ou vous tuez deux personnes" (Stop here or you will kill two people) Another said "Ne Tirez pas" (Don't shoot) and a third said "G8 Illegitime" . We stood across the road with the banners clearly visible to the traffic and stopped the traffic. We also went up to the cars and explained to the drivers what was happening and the importance of not driving through the rope. Once the traffic had been stopped 3 people assisted the climbers to get the rope across the bridge and themselves into position. The rope had brightly coloured material and strips of foil paper attached to it to make it visible. This was NOT a banner drop- all the banners were held in people's hands and were only there to alert the traffic to the fact that there were two people suspended by the rope under the bridge.
Some of the motorists who we had blocked were quite angry and got out of their cars to argue with us. Some tried to drive through the banners and we had to sit on the bonnet of one car to prevent it from doing so.Motorists started to turn their cars around and drive back down the motorway along the hard shoulder. The police arrived quite quickly and
tried to get us off the road. The police tried to break our line and were very agressive with us. They did not want to listen to our explanation of what was happening and seemed only interetsed in getting the traffic through. They tore up our warning banner and took half of it away. We lay down on the road to slow them down, and when they removed us we ran up the road towards the rope. More police arrived from the other side.The police lifted the rope on the left-hand side of the bridge, where the British man was suspended, and started letting traffic pass under it. There was also a motorist, who was very angry, standing there with them. Suddenly, we heard screaming and realised that the rope had been cut. None of us saw exactly who cut the rope, but it was later confirmed that it was one of the policemen. Some people managed to catch the other end of the rope before the woman climber also fell, and we all ran to the cut end of the rope and hung onto it to prevent her from falling too. There were 7 or 8 people holding onto the rope. One policeman helped us hold the rope too, and though he asked his colleagues to help us on 3 occasions, it was only very reluctantly, after about 5 minutes that one of them did. This policeman was also the one who called the ambulance. The others remained on the bridge. Meanwhile, one of the activists who is a doctor had gone down to the river to attend to the fallen climber. She splinted his leg, made him as comfortable and warm as possible and assissted him in every way she could. At no time was she helped by the police in doing this. After about ten minutes, we managed to anchor the broken rope and set up a new rope. The new rope was let down to the other climber and she abseiled down it into the river. At around this time, first the fire brigade and then the ambulance arrived. There was an ambulance car and an ambulance helicopter; the latter was used to take the injured man to hospital, so previous reports that the police blocked the ambulance from coming through are untrue.
The climber is badly injured but will be ok. The other climber was treated for shock in hospital, but is now out and is doing ok.
The activists on the bridge were taken to a police detention center and told on arrival that we were just witnesses and they wanted to take witness reports from us. We were later charged with blocking traffic on a motorway and being pedestrians on a motorway. We don't know if the climbers or other people involved have been charged. There is a criminal investigation into the incident going on and I have heard, though not had it confirmed, that the policeman who cut the rope has been arrested.
(non-copyrighted material) http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/06/70805.html




http://www.aubonnebridge.net

Is this a legitimate form of civil disobedience or does it unnecessarily place people in danger?

[jjmalonejr]

1. It's absolutely savage

Let's not let our disgust with the way the Bush Administration is conducting this war allow us to give this kind of inhuman behavior a pass.

[DulceDecorum]

12. Strange Fruit

It is an old established American custom to suspend people from structures by the neck.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACstrangefruit.htm

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.


I guess that since they do not have too many magnolia trees in Iraq, they had to make do with a bridge.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

14. What does this have to do with Iraq?

Did you read anything in this thread other than the title?

[rman]

56. hanging from bridges "savage and inhumane"? LOL

-

[Ready4Change]

2. I'm all for protesting, but against blocking traffic.

I've had too many friends saved by the timely arrival of ambulances. Blocking traffic across a bridge has dangerous repurcussions far beyond a few inconvenienced commuters.

[DulceDecorum]

6. USMC snipers v Iraqi ambulance drivers

So far the USMC snipers are winning by a long shot.

[debsianben]

54. Not an Issue

People get out of the way for ambulances. I've never been to a protest where people didn't get out of the way for an ambulance. Saying that people shouldn't block traffic because of the ambulance issue would be as silly as saying that people shouldn't drive cars down the street because that could slow down any ambulances that might come tearing through there. In both cases, its not a problem to move out of the way/pull over to the side of the road. It's a red herring.

[Sinistrous]

3. Irresponsible and stupid.

Protesting SALVAGE logging???

Good grief.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. I'm talking about the method, not the underlying issue

btw, they call it 'salvage logging' much like they call it the 'Healthy Forests Initiative'. Forests actually need occasional fires to be healthy, burned snags provide habitat for all sorts of critters, and removing them doesn't do anything to make the forest healthier, and many burned but live trees are cut along with the dead ones. Additionally, the FS violated the agreement that allowed the salvage logging by going forward with the logging part of it but not the reclamation efforts.

[0rganism]

32. Do you even know what "salvage logging" looks like?

I'll give you a hint: it's just like a clearcut, except the newspapers get to tell you that only "dead and dying" trees are removed.

Bullshit.

For a timber company to make money, they have to sell the wood. No one is going to buy a bunch of deadwood, so in order for these guys to turn a profit, the gov't gives them a "take": so-and-so many board-feet of perfectly healthy forest they get to remove along with the snags. And then there's the role the snags themselves play in providing habitat for wildlife. "Salvage" logging is a sick fucking joke, one of the sickest ever.

The article saying these people are protesting "salvage logging" is nothing less than a loaded belittlement of environmentalists.

[AngryAmish]

40. Walk away slowly.

ok, whatever you say.

[G_j]

46. this shows

how effective language can be, "salvage logging' is an 'Orwellian' term for forest destruction.

[Sinistrous]

57. Fascinating.

I overlooked the fact that this thread was being written in "Green-speak". I will now return to the real world.

[G_j]

58. actually

it is double-speak brought to you by Republicans. I was pointing out how completely misleading the term "salvage" is in this case. Anybody who was not aware of the actual policy would think it sounded reasonable. I didn't mean to imply anything beyond that.

Another example of this was pointed out below, the "Clear Skies Initiative", Bush's policy of letting power plants increase pollution. As Al Franken jokes, clear the skies of birds.
Then we have the "wise use" movement. Sounds great doesn't it?Actually it is a movement to fight and undermine environmental regulations. So it is not Green-speak its Republican speak.

[Cleita]

5. I find Earth First! way over the top in most of their actions.

Although I'm not against extreme actions in protests, when the circumstances warrant it, fringe loonies like these make real protest ineffective when the conditions are such that dire means of getting attention are called for.

Not only that, the protesters are paid wages to do this. They advertise for protesters targetting college age students to do this like a summer job type of thing. I think they should be made to account for their methods in the courts.

I have no idea what their real agenda is, or how they get the majority of their financing, but I am suspicious that enviromentalism is furthest from the real intent of all of this.

[Webster Green]

11. Fringe loonies? Because they are trying to save our forests?

What a load of crap!

What is way over the top is ChimpCo Inc. trading our forests to the timber barons in exchange for millions in campaign contributions.

Earth firsters are very brave volunteers who are putting their bodies on the line to try to save what is left of critical ecosystems that are being threatened by greedy capitalists.

The only true statement in your post is that you have no idea what their real agenda is.

Fringe loonies indeed!

[Cleita]

15. Excuse Moi, but I spent a decade living in various forests of our

Northwest. I know which environmental groups are effective and which ones aren't. Earth First! causes more environmental damage that they save. You should go into a forest that they have camped in on one of their crusades. Besides the garbage left lying around, fragile native plants are destroyed, streams polluted and the wildlife terrified.

Real environmentalists follow the same credo as cavers, leave no footprints and take nothing but pictures. Dedicated environmentalists make a point of leaving a campsite as they found it. No one should know anyone was there. They don't bring motorized vehicles into the forest or boomboxes or make campfires.

Yes, Bush and the forest industries are the devil incarnate, but not all logging operations are clear cuts. Some are necessary to encourage new growth in areas that have had wildfires.

[Webster Green]

16. I have been in the camps............

Your description is very different from what I saw. Don't know what your agenda is, but there are two sides to every story.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

17. I find that description very hard to believe as well

not consistent with the facts as I know them.

[Cleita]

20. There are several articles in the Idaho Spokesman about

Earth First! and a protest they had in the Bitteroot wilderness back when I was there 1997. I came. I saw. I was disgusted. Not only that, the protesters, not aware that there weren't any stores in the area, found themselves without food and water and the locals had to help them out. I'm sure the stories are well archived, but I will try to see if I can bring them up.

Perhaps, the planning is better now, learning from experience and all, but these people left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

[SemperEadem]

24. No, there are always 3 sides to every story

yours, theirs and the truth

[Feanorcurufinwe]

26. Look we didn't expect

the Spanish Inquisition

[Webster Green]

18. Oh!, and by the way...........

Your claim that "logging operations are necessary to encourage new growth in areas that have had wildfires" is total bullshit, and is the whole premise of smirky's "healthy forests" con-job.

Forests do just fine with no interference from timber-barons, thenk yew!

I think I figured out your agenda after all.

[Cleita]

19. Oh puleez.

I don't have an agenda. I want to preserve our wilderness as much as anyone, but when outfits like the extreme environmentalists go into areas that they know nothing about they upset everything people have managed to accomplish in trying to work out solutions and compromises.

I know Bush's healthy forest bullshit is just that. The bushy growth from clear cutting around towns is what needs to be cleared not the old growth forest, which we know what is going to happen with Bush's plans.

But people like you who have no room for compromise and really don't understand the problems make things worse. The best thing any environmentalist can do is to stop the building roads into the few wilderness areas we have left. Clinton had managed to have roads removed from much of the Selkirk wilderness and adjacent areas, so that only trails are left to hike into. Bush has rolled all of this back and the roads are being built again.

Stopping trucks with a bunch of trees that have already been harvested does nothing productive but incense a bunch of rural people who rely on these timber sales for jobs. Lobbying to have roads and commercial airstrips from these areas will go further to preserving the wilderness than hanging from bridges will. Also, bringing in eco-friendly businesses that will get people who rely on the lumber industry employed again will do more.

[Webster Green]

25. People like me who don't understand the problems?

I disagree with you. That doesn't automatically make me wrong.

You know smirky's initiative is bullshit, but you defend it just the same.

Companies like Pacific Lumber do not believe in compromise. They simply demonize activists as terrorists, and "fringe loonies". You are helping them by spreading their right wing propaganda.

It will take extreme measures to protect what is left, since all the regulations that were in place are being removed by ChimpCo Inc. If there is no option to take the bad guys to court, the only thing left is direct action, otherwise the trees will be gone, and the ecosystems destroyed.

[Cleita]

30. I DEFENDED SMIRKY'S INITIATIVE????

Pray tell where I defended it? What I said was that the people who can help you get what you want are turned off by these kinds of circus displays, that accomplish nothing and actually make things worse.

Whether you know it or not there are other environmental groups like the Sierra Club and many local clubs who are trying to save their environment from Smirky and companies like Pacific Lumber, by convincing the local people, who were there long before environmentalists, the business people, the hunters and the fishermen, why it is to their advantage to fight companies like Pacific Lumber and ecological practices like the healthy forest initiative.

Also, it's the federal government under the auspices of the Secretary of the Interior who approve the sales of our national forest trees, not the local forest management people. If you want to stop these guys you have to go to Washington DC and put your money into lobbying, lawsuits and anything else that gets the attention of the pols who can do something about it. And I repeat, no roads, no logging.

[Webster Green]

36. OK, you don't have to yell!

I'm talking about defending the part of the initiative that says we need timber companies to come in and cut out trees in order to save the forests. This is a major smokescreen that is not supported by the facts. It is mis-information designed to pay back the timber barons for their support.

I agree with you that we need to stop the roads from being built, and that we should focus on clearing dense undergrowth near populated areas.

I object to your characterizing Earth First activists as "fringe loonies", who are not "real" environmentalists. There are plenty of people who participate in direct actions and also support and get involved with more mainstream groups like the Sierra Club.

It is not fair to marginalize activists simply because they are a little ahead of the curve. After you get done beating your head against the wall trying to reason with unreasonable people, maybe you will find yourself in the woods with a monkey wrench in your hand.

You will be welcomed.

[Cleita]

38. I apologize.

Now can you apologize to me. We are both in the same trench. We really can't fight each other. Sometimes I think though that perhaps Earth First! is actually allied with:

Pacific Lumber
Boise Cascade
Weyerhauser
Scotia Lumber aka Pacific Lumber Co.
Potlatch Lumber

I have noticed that when the radicals descend on a community that is living hand to mouth, it makes those of us who are trying to come up with workable solutions look like outsider assholes. These theatrics don't help. It makes me think that they are intended to make environmentalists look like the Birkenstock wearing city people that the Repukes like to refer to.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

21. Wha?

Some (logging operations) are neessary to encourage new growth in areas that have had wildfires.

Obviously not all logging is bad but this statement of yours has no basis in fact.

[Cleita]

22. You've heard of erosion haven't you?

Removing the dead trees from a burnout and letting the sun in to give the young seeds a chance to become trees, is much quicker than ignoring it. Since most of the forests that burn these days are usually third growth, the destruction is more than would be in an old growth forest. Erosion pollutes the streams and washes the topsoil off the mountain and then nothing grows except some very tough scrub. Now I don't know what kind of logs were being removed, but the fact was they were already harvested. Spilt milk.

Next time Earth First! wants to save a tree they should block the trucks that build the logging roads. Without the roads the trucks the equipment to harvest the trees and the trucks to bring the logs out can't get in there.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

23. All those millenia without logging, however did the forests survive

without us?

[Cleita]

31. Well, since we have harvested these forests repeatedly

in the last 200 years, not to mention all the mining that went on, which polluted the soil and fresh water, yeah, it's gonna take us helping out to get it back unless you want to wait another millennia or would you rather we turned into Easter Island?

I repeat, no roads, no commericial airstrips, no rails, equals no logging or mining. To do that you have to change the laws. That's where the real environmentalists are working.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

33. That statement has no scientific basis whatsover.

It's just timber industry progaganda.

I happen to live in an area that is a patchwork of unlogged, extensively logged, clearcut, burned, not burned -- you name it, it's within 10 miles of my house. And based on my direct experience as well as all the available science, what you are saying is total nonsense.

[Cleita]

42. You have a real ecological disaster near your house.

If you want to talk about nonsense, I think your patchwork says it really well. I hope you protect the unlogged, work to replant the clearcut, burned and whatever. Soil erosion is a serious problem.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

44. I don't think you would say that if you saw it.

Yes there are problems but I think it is a pretty nice neighborhood. Probably not as much of an ecological disaster as most people live in. There is abundant wildlife, I've even seen some pretty shy critters right in my valley, a wolverine and a mountain lion. There is a lot of private timberland and they are pretty rough on it, but there is a lot of NF as well. And the fires, what are you gonna do? Drought + lightning = fire. Hopefully it will be wetter this summer.


BTW, Yes there is such a thing as soil erosion. That in no way makes your statement that we need to log burned areas in order for them to reforest true. Please document this bizarre claim that flies in the face of common sense and millenia of cycles of forest fire and regrowth.

[Cleita]

45. Why do you twist my words on me?

I didn't say you should log burned areas. What I said was that sometimes it was the best thing to do. No one said why those salvage logs were taken out. It could be that the forest management people, who are a lot more concerned than you might believe, thought it was best, or it could be that they have to follow orders.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

47. You said: "Some are necessary to encourage new growth" - that's nonsense

Please document this bizarre claim that flies in the face of common sense and millenia of cycles of forest fire and regrowth.

[Cleita]

49. It isn't mellenia that does cycle of regrowth that you are talking about.

Lets start with forest trees.

Most tall growth trees reach a good height and reasonable width in about sixty years. Oh, lets talk about Douglas fir, Cedar: there are so many cedars that I love all of them. Did you know that all those little living Christmas trees that are around in winter if you actually plant them and grow them grow to be a very big tree in a hundred years if they survive.

The real purpose of preserving the forest is not so much about the trees but the wildlife they support. Remember the big spotted owl debacle?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

50. I'll take your off topic ramblings to be an admission

that your prior statement was nonsense.

Otherwise, stick to the subject and provide some corroboration for the bizarre statement:
"Some are necessary to encourage new growth"

[Cleita]

52. If I am off subject, then what is the subject?

Maybe I need to leave this club.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

53. Your statement: "Some are necessary to encourage new growth"

is the subject. Which I took issue with because it's nonsense, since obviously there have been forest fires for thousands of years and the new growth has been coming back fine all that time. So I asked you to justify this bizarre statement and you said: "Most tall growth trees reach a good height and reasonable width in about sixty years." among other things, none of which had anything to do with whether logging is sometimes necessary to encourage new growth.

[0rganism]

34. You've heard of helicopter logging, haven't you?

> Without the roads the trucks the equipment to harvest the trees
> and the trucks to bring the logs out can't get in there.

If only it were that simple! Companies like Pacific Lumber specialize in logging roadless wilderness. And it's not just "thinning" we're talking about, I've seen entire hillsides turned into barren fucking moonscapes by airlift loggers.

The timber industry is one of the most destructive, corrupt, and ideologically driven we have.

[Cleita]

39. "You bang em, I hang em."

On the business card, very bad spelling incidentally, of my favorite helicopter logger. Actually, as crude and rude as this person was, he actually believed it was a solution to clear cuts.

If you aren't familiar with clear cuts or "temporary meadows" in the forest management doublespeak, it's building a road into these inaccessible places. Ha Ha. A really good forest truck driver is like a moonshiner. He can drive that damn truck everywhere as long as there is a road.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

43. And they use the helis to log the really super steep slopes

Yes they does less damage on the ground to some extent, but that is overbalanced by the fact that they use them to log such inappropriate places.

[Cleita]

51. They have to get the equipment up there.

Steep slopes don't bother loggers. They are used to it. The hellis are rather expensive, so the trees have to be really good. So now, about those roads? A truck can't bring a load down a steep slope, but equipment can be taken up a steep road. If there is no road they can't do it that fast. Incidentally the Amish harvest trees up in Montana with draft horses. They drag them down the mountain through the trees.

I'm not saying this is better. What I am saying is that it is done.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

55. Or gee! - maybe they could log somewhere more appropriate.

Somewhere where the trees will have an easier time re-establishing themselves, someplace where the erosion that you seem so concerned with in another sub-thread will be less of a problem. Just a thought.

There's no point in pretending I am arguing against helicopter logging. I'm just saying that sometimes it is used to log terrain that shouldn't be logged because it's too steep.

[Redneck Socialist]

27. Getting paid?

Sorry I have to see a link for that claim.

Earth First isn't about hiring people for summer jobs.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

28. Yeah that's a good one, isn't it?

[Cleita]

41. They aren't paying you guys these days?

Ten years ago they offered $7 an hour in ads they placed in the Oregonian.

[pop goes the weasel]

7. it's not that simple

There are protest tactics that are aimed at publicizing a stance, which is the sort of protest that most of us get involved in. And then there is protest that aims to force a change in behavior. These environmentalists you are using as an example are doing the latter--trying to force government and business to adopt their land management schemes. Leaving aside the merits of their argument, what they are doing is within the scope of civil disobedience. All those protest marches for civil rights in the 1960s sure tied up a lot of traffic, didn't they? In the early 1970s, student occupiers of administrative buildings sure inconvenienced a lot of folks, didn't they? Now, should people who do these things be punished? Generally, they expect to be punished; it's part of the plan to gain public sympathy. So, are those protest tactics irresponsible? No--the protestors know what they are doing, and accept the consequences. Are they legitimate? Not in the sense of being legal, no. Protests become legitimate only if the society in which they occur decides to support them. Thus, the civil rights protestors of the 1960s and the student protestors of the 1970s were able to gain legitimacy. Sometimes, the protests become so legitimized by society that they become a revolution, like the American Revolution. And this is why governments everywhere take protests very seriously.

[markomalley]

8. Is there a problem with direct action?

I understand the concerns expressed here, but direct action seems to be the only way that some people can get their message across.

Protests inconvenience people...should protests not be allowed?

The French underground inconvenienced people during WWII...should they not have been supported by the allies?

These people have points they need to get across. We need to address their issues and then the protests will lessen.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. You seem to be responding to some other poll

one that condemns, criticizes, or as you put it 'expresses concern' with direct action.


There are many, many forms of direct action. The poll should in no way be understood as a poll about 'direct action' -- it is a discussion of a specific protest method, not 'direct action' in general.


You also say Protests inconvenience people...should protests not be allowed?

while the poll and the discussion has absolutely nothing to do with whether people are inconvenienced - the question is whether life and safety is unnecessarily put at risk by this specific protest method.

BTW, I voted undecided.

[markomalley]

10. Point taken

Point taken...didn't realize there was another poll on this (still a newbie).

Having accepted my whipping, let me say that I still support their actions fully. If more people were like them, we'd have a far different country.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

13. When I read about this in my local paper

I was firmly on the side of the protesters, as someone who truly believes there should be 'no compromise in defense of Mother Earth'.

But yesterday I watched video of the Aubonne Bridge action. The authorities certainly did not act as responsibly as the Missoula authorities did. The Missoula protesters were charged with endangering the rescue workers but that's bogus - it's their own lives that were placed in danger, trusting to the responsible actions of the authorities.

I'd classify the Missoula action as a success - the issue was highlighted, public awareness was raised, and no one got hurt. But the Aubonne action I'd qualify as a disaster. Looking at the video, I couldn't even tell what message the protesters were trying to get across -- it was merely a basically unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the G8 summit, and one of the protesters ended up seriously injured. If someone like me, who is basically sympathetic to the protesters, isn't getting the message, I'd call it a failure. Placing this protesters in danger like this makes them and their protest the story, instead of the issue they are protesting.

On the other hand, the power of the authorities to supress dissent has become so effective that I appreciate the fact that innovative and sometimes extreme measures are necessary. So I'm undecided about whether this is appropriate and thought I'd make a poll.

Oh and Welcome to DU!

[Redneck Socialist]

29. Direct action is absolutely necessary

and I agree with you assessment of the success of the respective actions.

In both cases the actions were essentially political theater aimed at the media. In the first case the message was clear and the resulting news report clearly called into question the actions of the logging company and policies of the Forest Service.

In the second I'm not sure what the message was. The G8 is bad? OK, sure, but the article concentrated on the actions, inactions or out right malfeasance of the authorities and the whole point of the action was lost.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

35. Actually, you raise an interesting point

and I slightly disagree. I see a distinction between 'direct action' and 'political theater'.

I agree the logging protest was successfull political theater, but I wouldn't call it direct action. Direct action to me means things like pulling up or moving surveyor stakes, sabotage, etc. - directly acting to disrupt the target. Sometimes it can also be political theater - e.g. tree sitting. But I don't see all political theater of that type as direct action. To me I guess the distinction would partially involve the desired end -- the protesters who hung off the logging truck did not actually intend to prevent the logs from reaching the mill, for example.

[Redneck Socialist]

37. Good point

and you are right, it is an important distinction.

[G_j]

48. innovative and sometimes extreme measures

as long as they are non-violent, don't endanger others and effectively get the message across, I think its great.

As long as corporations have an iron grasp on our world and resources
there may be little choice but to use direct action and civil disobedience as ONE of the tools for raising awareness and making change. People sometimes forget just how "extreme" the rape of our earth has become.