Hello folks. After four years in the Wild Rockies I have returned home to the beautiful South, and I am back in Washington, DC. I love this town and can't figure out why everyone calls it a hell-hole. It's a wonderful, friendly, African-American city full of strange music and spicy food. I'm currently researching the global underworld of pirates, thieves, liars and plunderers that we know fondly as the timber industry. My goal is to get all old-growth products off the market by the year 2005.

I was asked by the Journal to respond to the recently published article, "The Cult of Nonviolence," written by my good friends Darryl Echt and Gary Macfarlane. I like to see this kind of discussion in the Journal, even though it has been covered many times since the first issue appeared in 1979. But I feel compelled to question many of the assumptions that the authors raise.

Let's start with this first statement, "Sometime in our murky past, the self-elected 'leaders' of Earth First! issued some decisions: The movement was too violent, too morally impure, too fascistic, too stupid, the wrong media grist and in need of education. Anyhow, it was decided that we should clean up our act and become ethically principled resisters."

I feel like Rip Van Winkel. When did this happen? I must have passed out at a Rendezvous and woken up after it was over. This may be a reference to the renunciation of tree spiking initiated by Judi Bari at the 1989 ELAW conference in Eugene, Oregon. If so, it might be useful to note that the signers, of which I was one, expressly mentioned that they spoke only for themselves and were not denouncing anyone who disagreed. Anyway, all of us are constantly in need of further education, and I hope that we all want to be ethical and principled.

Later Darryl and Gary declare, "We have established our own nonviolent priesthood. We have determined that we need experts, priests. We build heroes, inflate martyrs and devalue the roles of other activists. Too frequently we defer decision making to our experts or priests."

Who are these priests? Certainly we have created a martyr of Judi Bari, but let's face it, the woman was vilified by many in Earth First! when she was alive. And while I believe that her life story as told today by many in her amen corner is false and misleading, they have every right to tell the story any way they choose. And what's wrong with experts? Would you take your car or VCR to get repaired by anyone other than an expert? The writers seem to question all heroes, but later they speak of the Sea Shepherd in almost reverential tones. All movements have heroes, experts and martyrs. It may not be right, but it helps us to teach each other and to tell our story, and that is important. I believe anthropologists call this an oral tradition, and it is probably older than campfires.

They go on to say, "The learned and/or experienced among us have become nonviolence trainers - they've been ordained. Well, overreliance on them creates an imbalance, an unhealthy hierarchy that haunts campaigns."

I agree that some nonviolence trainers can be self-righteous, sanctimonious pains in the ass. But it takes rigorous training before you can be a competent warrior. Good trainers teach you to think and to question, not to accept dogma.

Later Gary and Darryl write, "Often it is the tactic that becomes the message, not the Earth. The issue for which we chose to be arrested becomes obscured by the act itself."

Losing the message is a real risk in nonviolence. It is a bigger risk with monkeywrenching, a greater risk still with violence. But that doesn't make any of those paths wrong. Staying on message is the greatest challenge most activists will face. But through hard work and discipline, and by thinking everything through, it can be done. Look at the African National Congress and their successful struggle to end apartheid. The movement started as a nonviolent struggle modeled after Gandhi's Indian National Congress. It renounced nonviolence only after brutal repression. It stayed on message and won international support and recognition. It toppled the hated regime, and Nelson Mandela is today the president of South Africa, a man who spent 26 years in prison as a terrorist.

One of my favorite statements in the article is, "Indoctrination, be it called education or training, is done to create groupthink. For example, it has been our experience that some people involved in the Cove/Mallard campaign have not felt their ideas and skills were welcome or respected."

As someone who has spent many an afternoon sitting in a circle at Cove/Mallard, I know how the writers feel, but this sounds a lot like whining to me. Consensus is often a long and difficult process, but for direct actions it is extremely useful. Otherwise, one yahoo can endanger the safety, freedom and effectiveness of the whole group. There has to be some give and take.

Likewise, I have not found it true that "fighting the system through the court is disempowering. It keeps the focus on the legal system, social justice and human rights - everything but logging."

I like having my day in court. Jail is tough, but I have found it useful as a way to reach out to others. I still have all the letters that I received during my four month stint in a South Dakota jail. It may have been the best organizing I've ever done.

Finally, I want to address the statement, "A Native American eco-activist told one of us that although he respects those who choose arrest, he would never ask his friends on the reservation to subject themselves to the very power that has enslaved them for over 500 years. Are we creating and encouraging roles for people like him and his friends in the movement?"

Besides the fact that one Native American may disagree with another on this point, haven't we all been enslaved by the industrial technology that is killing our planet? Aren't we all, to some degree, in the same boat?

Most white activists I know are knee-jerk on the point of diversity. There are people of color who choose nonviolence. There are those who don't. There are globally more people of color in the environmental movement than there are whites. The larger environmental movement is extremely diverse and growing. If Native Americans, African Americans, Asians or Hispanics aren't drawn to your campaigns, maybe you need to look at yourselves. You want nonwhites at your meetings and gatherings, but you display no understanding of different cultures. You want them to be vegan, pegan, eco-anarchists just like you. Do you go to their churches, mosques or temples to speak? Do you table at their cultural or neighborhood events? Or do you expect them to read a poorly laid-out flyer, show up to your campfire, eat half-cooked beans and sleep in the mud? Get real.

The fact is, diversity is poorly understood in our movement. It is beautiful, but it is not the point. All peoples, all cultures, have their movements and organizations. We need to work with them when we can and respect our differences. You don't have to join their movements, and they don't have to join ours. We must work together, however, if we want to succeed.

I found Darryl and Gary's article, while provocative, very divisive and ignorant of the basic concepts of movement building. I wonder if they've ever read Gandhi or King, neither of which, by the way, were white.

PS: You can now contact the Man Without a Bioregion directly at roselle@essential.org.