I feel all the extremes coming together and spewing out of the brainstems of almost everyone in-between. The speed of change of the almost invisible forces that shape our lives is making it hard for even the studious or bright folks among us to capture a decent sense of the momentum of priorities. Just as humans lose track of themselves when technology or public policy move beyond our understanding and get too complicated, in a similar vein, the new social change movements are getting a bit disoriented even as they get stronger (maybe because they are stronger). Out here at the cutting edge is the boundary between Earth First! and the ELF. As ELF and other underground groups push the envelope a gap or a vacuum gets created between them and those who can’t keep up. Thoughts, definitions and understanding get fuzzier and communication breaks down.

The US government is worried. Dissatisfaction with the rat race lifestyle and the excesses of the new "Wealthy Arrogants," has translated into doubts among the masses about the whole idea - even the foundations - of a corporate New World Order of US dominated free trade. The Battle in Seattle, the Dirty Bush election fraud, the constant scandals at the FBI and a generalized boredom that expands against the hollowness of everything around us (especially the trashy ugliness of sprawl/strip development and the roar of freeways); these are working together to peel people away from the numbed unquestioning subservience to the government-corporate matrix that until recently few could even perceive.

The main reason the government is worried originates from the "No Compromise-No Dialogue" actions of underground ELF/ALF cells that have burned their way into the news media. The government knows that many people instinctively support resistance to corporate domination even if it is extreme. The popularity of extreme sports could easily transfer over to extreme actioneering. Humans will always value risk, the chase, adrenaline.

As for the critics of the ELF, the left, the greens and their moderate variants are a key part of the glue that holds the whole rotting social order together. Ignore the moderates and they will go away, though it is a shame they are on the wrong side. The route of the underground resistance lies in the dismantling of civilization. Each step closer to the collapse evokes a vista of a free, egalitarian existence.

There is much that we as humans, activists and " do-gooders" are blind to. We feel the needs of the future - War! - pulling at us, but expressing anything that makes sense is pure torment. We are seriously in denial about how much of our mental awareness it takes to keep the pain from killing us: The pain of how utterly evil the world structure is. Youth and the supporters of ELF/ALF don’t try to resist the pain. They redirect their torment back at the system and the consequences be damned. They don’t care about the media spin and corporate public relations angles. In fact, they don’t much care if anyone listens anymore - they are beyond that and beyond the narrow superficiality of single issue campaigns. They also have truth and directness on their side. The liberation of the Earth requires the collapse of almost everything that defines the world we live and consume in. " No longer will we beg for mercy at the hand of the oppressor man. The torch of resistance will be applied to the entire system and it’s technology." Ultra-Rads aren’t asking for anything, instead they strike out in order to take back the future. "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth" will become "No negotiations with governments ever," a war of no quarter and no taking of prisoners (though kidnapping could occur soon).

As for Earth First! and other sources of anarchist organizing, it is hard to be in two worlds at the same time, as in dealing with deadlines and business functions while writing and communicating with a host of people doing direct action out in the woods or by the light of night. Some media is what we create, but still there is interaction--or mostly reaction -- with the corporate media. Moderate eco-groups jump for the microphones and say strange things, so at times alternative, more radical voices join the debate.

I agree with the critique of the Washington and to a lesser degree the Romania - SUV fires in Eugene, as expressed by an " EF! Journalista" on May 24th. But ours are just one or two viewpoints and there are others. Our voices - none of them - matter much anymore. We can’t define the world or act as if it will become the way we want it to. There was a time when people should have talked and written more about where we are all probably going, more about tactics, strategies and the basics of a new world. Now we have allowed a vacuum to form. We have to get to work because we are about to fall much further behind.

Any day now, hundreds of people inspired by the ELF, Zapatistas, Militia, ALF or the "pot" at the end of Ms. Rainbow - will take initiative and read the ELF Press Office paper, Resistance. They will see the need for a broader attack that hits harder at key weak points and looks to targets with large symbolic value. Then radio/television towers may fall, black-outs will receive feral assistance and a few flashy new targets will be hit hard, and there will probably be injuries soon. Is anyone ready for this? Hardly, we’re stuck between fear of alienating people and the truth of how bad everything is and we are used to working on small, single issue, media glitz campaigns.

The "EF! Journalista" criteria for judging an action are fine from a moderate environmentalist stance or maybe even a moderate EF! stance, but they are not relevant to the underground and if they were applied to actions they would result in almost all of them being worthless. "Is this an appropriate target?" Almost everything is an appropriate target! "Was the timing right?" The only time criteria is sooner than later, though at the margins it could be argued that for overall media impact timing is occasionally important (Though media is not the primary goal of the underground). "How was it communicated?" Most ELF actions have been well communicated - you would almost think someone had written a book or two to help guide these mostly young saboteurs in their communiqué writing, but no, the vacuum that we all have helped create by our limited writing and strategizing on this whole subject has made it difficult for the underground. It was good of the ELF at Vail to warn skiers that there could be dangers if they kept coming to ski. The New York communiqués were excellent. Perhaps it is true that the anonymous statement following the Romania-SUV fires could have taken credit for the earlier fires and made Free look more innocent, but this is assuming a lot and assuming it from a moderate mindset. First, the NY ELF had already said that people should strike back in the name of fellow fighters/prisoners like Free, and second, the underground is at war, a real and dangerous war - not a media war or a CD struggle. They are risking their lives or years of incarceration and they probably figured correctly that Free was going to get screwed no matter what.

Since Vail, Seattle and the New York arsons we are in a new world and a new phase in the struggle to bring down global capitalism and everything in western civilization which supports the old ways. People aren’t sure what to support. Some want to discourage ELF or push criteria for direct action sabotage. Chaos will win over control this time around, and this applies to us few writers and activists who are concerned about where a large outbreak of ELF attacks will lead to. Moderates and non-violence people no longer have the right to speak - they had thirty-five years to accomplish something and they failed utterly. Radicals may still have some value in defining what is going on, but this is marginal. The time for talk and understanding is long past. Action and fires are the only communication which has meaning now. Can you read between the flames? Just wait until the power goes off, then we can read between the lines of the communiqués by candlelight. And the flickering flames will remind us of how the big lies grow in the gaps between our understanding of the present, which distorts our view of the future.

"The only thing worth fearing is the outcome of another generation living out the "American Dream". The States threats are minuscule in comparison."- Craig Rosebraugh, Resistance Vol. 2, #1

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