A conversation with convicted ecoterrorist Jeff Luers

[XemaSab]

Five years ago this month, Jeff Luers set fire to three SUVs at a dealership in Eugene, Ore., to protest America's heedless contributions to global warming. He was promptly arrested and put on trial for arson.

Refusing to plea bargain, as his accomplice did, and with a past record that includes 30 days in jail for a scuffle with a U.S. Forest Service agent, Luers was sentenced to 22 years and 6 months in prison, the longest sentence ever handed down in America for environmentally motivated sabotage.

"I think that anyone who is quick to judge me for what I did should, at the very least, be quick to judge corporations for what they do. They look at my activities and say that they're wrong because they break the law. But I believe in a higher law: We have a responsibility to future generations and a responsibility to ourselves to challenge injustice. The destruction of the world is injustice. The exploitation of indigenous peoples and peasants in underdeveloped countries is injustice."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2005/06/22/gree.DTL

[SteppingRazor]

1. Yeah, I agree with what he says, but...

Setting fire to cars is also injustice. What if that fire had spread? What if it had gone out of control? What if people had died?

I don't think he deserves 22 years, but I do think that anyone who commits arson must have some disregard foor human life.

[The Stranger]

6. Someone died?

Someone disregarded human life?

What the fuck are you reading?

[SteppingRazor]

9. Actually, I wrote "WHAT IF someone had died"

So, if I may turn the tables, What the fuck are YOU reading?

[The Stranger]

10. The fuck I was reading was your post.

Maybe you shouldn't inject facts that do not exist.

Note: No one came close to dying. No one was hurt in any way.

[undergroundpanther]

2. Good article

But don't expect much direct actions from people afraid or too comfortable to get out of denial enough to bite the hands that feeds and rules them.

[Paranoid Pessimist]

3. Unfortunately, acts of ecoterrorism only embolden the ...

... forces of repression and alienate those who might be sympathetic. I wish it weren't so, but it is.

[The Stranger]

7. The notion of "ecoterrorism" is a construction of the forces of repression

, so why use the term?

[kwolf68]

4. These people do good for

The wise-use movement, the oligarchs, and corporate right wing. When one of these people do something like this the other side comes out and says, “See…that’s what the environmental movement is about…its about destruction, hatred, violence, and they want to rule you and your decisions.”

If this guy wants to get involved…become an investigative journalist, run for congress, write letters, lobby your representatives…do whatever you can for the plight of the earth outside of destroying people’s property. As much as I loathe hummers and Suburbans and Escalades and they make me sick to my stomach I’d never once think about setting one on fire that I did not own (and since I don’t own one I won’t do that).

Come on dude…you have some good thoughts there, but quit justifying your criminality with the criminality of the corporate oligarchs.

[The Stranger]

8. Alienating those who speak out is the modus operandi of the right wing.

These are nothing but reactionary talking points writ DU.

[maxsolomon]

5. TWENTY TWO YEARS?

7 1/3 years per SUV?

he'd have done less time for raping a child.