The mentors

While in the Tiananmen Square massacre Communism showed its customary face, and in Iran frenzied mobs tore the shroud off Carter appointee Khomeini, there were lesser stories in energy. David Foreman and two other terrorists were arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiring to sabotage power lines at several nuclear facilities in Arizona and Colorado.

Foreman is founder of the Earth First! extremists, who preaches that bacteria have equal rights to existence with humans [AtE May 83], and has authored a book subtitled A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching [AtE Mar 83]. This gives detailed instructions on how to blow up power lines, destroy seismic in-struments, disable trucks, and commit other acts of "ecotage" (Foreman's word) in 43 other realms of industrial activity.

One of them is to spike trees with long nails so as to cripple saws in sawmills. In May 1987, this caused a band saw to shatter in Hopland, Calif., breaking the operator's jaw in five places and knocking out a dozen of his teeth. Whereupon a local Earth First! official accused the lumber companies of "jeopardizing their workers indirectly by forcing citizens to take matters in their own hands" [AtE Aug 87].

It is of course quite true that this type of "ecotage" is neither typical for the entire environmental movement nor of lasting im-portance. What these eco-stormtroopers share with the American Nazi Party is not just their bent for violence, but also their insignificance. The adolescent misfits wearing shoulder belts and swastikas are laughable to anyone who saw the real thing, just as Forman's wilding is laughable compared to Washington's environmentalist lobbies.

Where the Econazis break a few jaws and knock out a few dozen teeth, Edward Markey, Ralph Nader, Dan Rather and the other ecoteurs help kill a median of 72 people per delayed gigawatt of nuclear power per year. Where the Econazis use petty tools like chemicals poured into the gas tanks of trucks, the NRDC and the other de-industrializers use litigation and environmental impact statements to destroy entire industries. Mr. Foreman is an amateurish small-timer ignorant of the more effective types of ecotage.

Ecotage is at its most efficient when practiced by the four branches of government, especially the one that is free of checks and balances, and to which the other three are subservient: the press.

Although they mainly promote more damaging ecotage like anti-nuclear hysteria, fear of harmless chemicals, and other de-industrialization drives under the guise of environmental con-cern, the unchecked and unbalanced members of the Fourth Branch are not beyond encouraging the stormtroopers' and Econazis' petty crimes.

"Saboteurs get support in Boulder," screams the Daily Camera on page 1 in 54 point type (you are reading 10 point type), quot-ing one Bill Doub: "By and large, I am strongly in favor of sabotage. But at Rocky flats . . . the only thing that I think would be safe is to blow up a road at the entrance," and citing CU mathematics prof M. Walter: "If you want to understand why people do terrorist acts . . . it's nothing near what Exxon has done."

As I have said before, while commoners may not shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, the aristocracy of the Fourth Estate may help injure and kill by hiding behind "freedom of the press." I am no more against freedom of the press than I am against the right to bear arms; but the user of arms is responsible and accountable for any damage he inflicts with his weapon.

Not so the unbridled aristocracy in the superior branch of government: it is not held to the same rules as the three subor-dinate and approval-seeking ones.

But then, it has never been the custom for an aristocracy to live by the rules that they decree for their underlings.