Marshall Curry's "If a Tree Falls" premieres on PBS's "POV" series Tuesday, September 13, 2011.
by Steven Boone
Terrorism is plain stupid. I reaffirmed this belief halfway into "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front", a documentary chronicling the titular organization's rise and fall. It's one thing to protest in the streets, sit down in front of bulldozers and stage direct "actions" to draw media attention to a particular issue; it's another thing entirely to commit violent crimes with the same ends in mind. But did the Earth Liberation Front actually perpetrate any terrorism? Their 1200 or so "incidents," as a lawyer representing some members calls them, resulted in zero deaths or injuries (other than maybe a booboo sustained while vaulting a fence before the cops came). The violence was restricted to private property.
But the crimes covered in this film were prosecuted in the wake of 9/11, when its principal subject, radical environmental activist-arsonist Daniel McGowan, found himself branded a terrorist in the media and on trial. "I think people look at my case and think, 'What if that motherf**ker burned down my house?'" he says in the film. "They think it's just a bunch of young crazies walking around with gas cans, lighting shit on fire and that pisses them off."
"These facilities" were the offices of park rangers, loggers, an SUV dealership and a horse slaughterhouse. In the '90s and '00s, the E.L.F. targeted a range of businesses and organizations it saw as powerful agents of environmental destruction. The members were mostly very young protestors radicalized by brutal police response. Footage of cops beating and pepper-spraying non-violent activists who refuse to disperse does resemble classic civil rights/counterculture tumult. (Scenes of confrontation with loggers, from an E. L.F.-made documentary ostensibly shot in the mid-90s, look as if they could have been shot in the late '60s.) This was a classic, bright-eyed, idealistic strain of the environmental movement, led by resourceful twenty-somethings.
McGowan, a Brooklyn-born, Queens-raised Gen-Xer who had rarely been away from an urban environment and had never been camping, became obsessed with righting corporate wrongs against nature from the moment he happened to see a documentary on the subject at the Wetlands organization: massive oil spills, whaling ships, deforested land, strip mining. "I'd never seen with my own eyes what kind of world we lived in."
After volunteering at Wetlands and joining lots of street protests, he experienced nature for the first time at a national gathering in Wisconson. He was 22 years old and suddenly in love with the movement.
"If a Tree Falls" does a fine job of tracing McGowan's coming of age in a time when camcorders and the still-young Internet were supercharging progressive activism. But the film isn't a dry recital of facts and events. Filmmakers Marshall Curry and Sam Culman keep McGowan's personal story up front. We first see him in his sister's apartment, cooking dinner with a house arrest ankle bracelet. The fact that this pudgy, soft-spoken, utterly average nice guy is facing (during the time of filming) a life sentence plus 335 years for burning down some remote, empty buildings seems absurd and terrifying. "It's hideous to be called a terrorist," he says.
His sister recalls how his obsession with doing right by the environment sometimes got as absurd as his current situation. She once found that all her canned goods were missing labels because Daniel was recycling them. (After he prepares dinner, we see him washing out Baggies and hanging them out to dry.)
McGowan seems so harmless and self-effacing, it's easy to forget what's at stake. This investigation was "the largest domestic terrorism case in the history of the United States," says Kurt Endgall, Assistant U. S. Attorney. Stephen Feiffer, another U. S. prosecutor, defends applying the terrorism charges with, "You don't have to be Bonnie and Clyde to be a bank robber and you don't have to be Al Qaeda to be a terrorist."
Ouch. A series of clips from TV news in which the buzzword "eco-terrorist" gets a vigorous workout shows how the post-9/11 climate helped the Bonnie and Clyde/Al Qaeda analogy become a popular sentiment. With masked anarchists and undercover agent provocateurs joining major protests like the 1999 rally against the WTO in Seattle, violent images sold folks on the blanket notion of all progressive activists as unruly mobs. The filmmakers balance this with camcorder footage of extreme police brutality at the WTO marches. McGowan reflects, "It made me think, 'Why are we being so gentle in our activism when this is what's happening,' you know?"
Drawing from a very thoughtful and articulate selection of folks from all sides of the issue, "If a Tree Falls" comes of age itself, pushing past the familiar activists-vs.-the-corporate-state paradigm to hear from those whose sympathies lie on both sides. A timber company entrepreneur who saw his offices burned to the ground makes a compelling case that he's more of a true environmentalist than the kids who have demonized him. (For every tree he cuts down, he's bound by law to plant six.) We also witness the sad phenomenon of ostensibly hard-line activists who sell out their former friends the moment the FBI applies some pressure. We see Jake Ferguson, a punk-styled, chain-smoking badass (who could have been played by a young Johnny Depp in a Hollywood E.L.F. movie), years later a sad, obese wreck who has informed on all his friends, including McGowan.
In the end, it seems that McGowan, the shy Catholic boy from blue collar NYC, is the E.L.F. defendant who sticks most doggedly to his principles, for better or worse. It's so moving, the way it all plays out, in hugs and tears and the remorse of a man in his mid-30s, still young, still radiating decency and idealism, but branded for life.
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Steven Boone is a film film critic, filmmaker and video vandal based in New York City. He champions big ideas and small budgets at Big Media Vandalism, writes about essential films at Keyframe and Press Play, and about his experiences with homelessness at Capital.
I can't feel too much sympathy for gentle, young, idealistic activists when they decide they're above the law. If this young man had watched footage of radical mosques all over the world, and the violence and brutality of radical Islamists, and said, "I'd never seen with my own eyes what kind of world we lived in," then started burning mosques and Islamic schools, no one would dismiss it as targeting merely private property, and no one would hesitate to call it terror.
Great article, but I'm confused. These movies are billed as "On Demand," but I don't see any info here on how to view them or access them. Am I blind?
If ECO-TERRORISM is stupid then what do you call wrecking the planet just so we can drive our stupid cars around?
awesome AWESOME movie - see it and decide for yourself
And yet the rich and wealthy who cause all of the damage for excess riches they'll never live long enough to possibly spend, at the expense of a world poorer for all, walk the land free men and women. So who are the true terrorists? And btw, I'm not 20-something, I'm 55.
That information is in italics at the top of each On Demand post -- usually with links to more information.
If taking action to protect the planet is terrorism, then what do you call corporations that pollute the environment?
Somehow, when I read the very first sentence, "Terrorism is stupid", I knew the rest of the article would try to apologize for the ignorant actions of this imbecile.
@ChicagoRob: According to Wikipedia, as of 2005, 48% of the world's population earned less than $2.50 per day. Unless you're living as an ascetic, you qualify as one of the wealthy. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy having my own flush toilet and gas furnace. It's pleasant to know that I live better than most historic kings. But I don't blame the few million people who are even wealthier than I am for the state of the environment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_inequality#Further_facts
"If this young man had watched footage of radical mosques all over the world, and the violence and brutality of radical Islamists, and said, 'I'd never seen with my own eyes what kind of world we lived in,' then started burning mosques and Islamic schools, no one would dismiss it as targeting merely private property, and no one would hesitate to call it terror."
People would hesitate to call it terror (indeed, many have) if the burning of mosques and schools was achieved through extensive aerial bombing. (This analogy if far from pat, however, since the E.L.F. has never killed anyone.)
I must disagree. Every single thing, without exception, that Bin Laden set out to accomplish with the 9/11 attacks was realized--the socio-economic ruin of the USA, religious war in the Middle East, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalist influence in that region. Terrorism may be a human and moral atrocity, but provided one understands the psychology of nations, it accomplishes its goals, and that makes it quite intelligent (in a morally indefensible sort of way).
I agree that labeling this guy a terrorist is dubious and the life sentence is totally disproportionate. I am not in favour of treating people who target empty buildings the same as people who target people.
However, if the public has turned against the activist element, the activists have only themselves to blame. Every time these guys riot they all claim to be "non violent". But when pressed on the definition of "violence" they suddenly grow defensive and evasive. Even the so-called peaceful "moderates" refuse to condemn the smashing of store windows and burning of private property.
People resent having their cities trashed by so-called "activists" every time the WT0 or G20 comes to town. Until these people denounce violence for real and condemn the masked bandits who create chaos, the sympathy will run dry and police will be given further license to put these criminals in their place. This is serious stuff. These punks and their "protests" are costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Enough is enough.
It's let's rebel against Mommy & Daddy for making me live a comfortable life and thinking I won't have to pay for anything I do cloaked in the modern religion of Environmentalism. Do any of the young idealists ever consider that the SUVs they burn release more pollution than all of the SUVs themselves will ever produce? Do they ever think about the possibility of someone getting hurt or killed while cleaning up after them? Oh, no, of course not. Why should they, when people will continue to apologize for them? My sympathy is with the adults who invariably have to deal with the problems these terrorists create. Don't let sympathy for their cause blind you to the hard reality of their actions.
Two things. The first is the premise; this particular act of terrorism was stupid, but terrorism on the whole can be, and has been, highly effective. It requires a combination of realistic political goals, and the credible threat of sustained and terrible force. The threat has to be credible; the force has to be terrible; it has to be sustained. The eco-terrorists in the article might have carried on indefinitely, they might eventually have turned into monsters, but they had unrealistic goals. They probably had no clear plan at all. The same is true of the animal rights people, the anti-abortionists, the Unabomber.
9/11 was perversely unsuccessful because it was unsustained. Terrorism works when people are scared that they'll be dragged out of their beds at 3am and shot by people who would get away without punishment. It worked in Northern Ireland; it's working in Mexico right now. Any place where people decide to move house rather than stay and soak up endless abuse is an example of terrorism working. 9/11 had no such effect.
The second thing is the profile picture of the author. It looks like one of The Onion's parodies of a sensitive, thoughtful young man. With the desaturated palette. And the chin-stroking. Actual bone fide chin-stroking. No.
Steven Boone is an excellent writer. More to come, I hope.
idiot. thats the point
To ChicagoRob - Is it the successful people's fault for being richer than you? When someone owns a successful and in all but extreme cases sustainable business that provides you with houses, paper, and energy, yet makes you feel a bit glum about your financial status and Bambi's loss of his favorite tree (which by law is replaced by six new ones), it certainly does not make them a terrorist.
I kept thinking of the fact that firefighters and first responder's lives were put on the line each and every time these guys went out to burn things down. If I have empathy for these kids, I have 100 times more for those who'se lives they risked. No mention was made of the danger burning empty buildings and cars cause.
Jesus. I read this and think the same thoughts I thought when I saw PETA's comparison of the Holocaust to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Or a guy I argued with on Facebook who compared the terrorist training camps to the GI Bill. These people are nuts.
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW MANY OFFSPRING THE MEMBERS OF THE ELF HAVE. IF IT IS MORE THAN ZERO THEN THEY HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR CREATING THE DEMAND FOR THE TREE PRODUCTS THEIR PROGENY USE OR WILL INHABIT. AS LONG AS WE CONTINUE TO PROPAGATE OUR SPECIES THE TREES WILL FALL. I AM A PROUD AND HAPPY 70 YEAR OLD TREE HUGGER WHO HAS NEVER ADDED TO THE POPULATION CARRYING BURDEN OF OUR ALREADY OVERTAXED MOTHER EARTH. JUST STOP MAKING BABIES ! ! ! ! ! WARREN SANTA FE, NM
Corporations have openly, at least within their own IT networks, discussed the value/economy of moving inefficient or poisonous manufacturing outside the U.S. borders and into the Third World to circumvent U.S. environmental laws. Corporations have discussed these practices with the U.S. government, in fact. What matters to them is lawfulness. When you are young, you equate lawfulness with morality and righteousness. After all, murder is illegal AND immoral. But passing laws, or overturning existing laws, isn't terribly difficult when political will exists. Capitalism is a powerful political motivator. The U.S. is amongst the worst ecologically damaging entities in the world, on the corporate, political, and even individual civilian level. But corporations and the government find ways to do it legally, by taking advantage of law, or 3rd world countries with slow-moving or blind-sided legislations. The real price to pay is always in the future though, and regularly becomes a socialized cost (taxpayers fund the cleanup) or globally shared cost (oceanic and atmospheric pollution). The burden of proof is also costly and difficult to resolve. Good examples include the cancer rates in food producing regions, or cancer rates amongst indigenous populations near the Canadian oil sands refining.
Hello Warren Gamache. I'd like to reply, respectfully, to your post above.
I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't say too much. However, the beginning of the article seems to indicate that no one was killed or harmed by these acts of aggression except for the protestors themselves. So with that, I can say that this is definately different than a group of kids targeting mosques and Islamic schools, and the two should not be compared as equals.
Schools and mosques are places where people are almost always present, regardless of what time of day it is. People undoubtably would've been killed in those situations. It's also just as important to mention that religion and education carry different meanings in people's lives than do corporate office buildings and other such facilities. Religion is a way of life and a belief system that is designed to transcend and supplement all areas in life. Business is livelihood, but it does not speak to the human spirit, if there is such a thing. To be frank: business and religion occupy different spaces in the human brain, and the effect of our participation (on the human mind and body) in each is radically different. Now, I'm not trying to condone what these people did. When I put myself in the position of these facilities' owners and employees, I feel devastated. But that doesn't make the implied equality between eco-terrorism and terrorism valid. Without going into whether or not the term "eco-terrorism" is a valid label for that which it currently represents, I do have to say that the two terms are given different names for a reason.
The distinction is important because it effects how we see these people, and consequently, how we judge them. This young man was deemed an eco-terrorist, and now due to some heavy property damage, he's serving a life sentence and 300 + years in prison. Serious as his crimes have been, can you honestly say that he deserves this? I can't, and that's why I think that comparing this man's crimes with the burning of Islamic schools and mosques is dangerous... and wrong (for the basic reasons listed in the paragraph directly above)
IT IS TERRORISM if its aim is to instill fear of people doing anything that those who commit violent acts don't approve of. These people commited the fire at the Vail Ski Resort, and people would do well to remember that. They are no different that the LUDDITES of the 18th century, and don't kid yourself that is where we will be if they get the chance.
Thank You
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