A thought-provoking expose+a7 of the "Wise Use Movement," a coalition of business interests and archconservatives, discusses the increasingly violent methods used by this anti-environmental movement and the failure of the law-enforcement establishment to address the problem.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Dirty tricks, lies and violence are, according to journalist Helvarg, the mainstays of the anti-environmental movement. The picture painted here is a frightening one of death threats, pet mutilation and arson practiced against a wide range of individuals exercising their First Amendment rights on behalf of the environment. Even worse is the role allegedly played by law enforcement officials. Rather than prosecuting violent crimes by anti-environmental fanatics, the police seem more concerned about threats to society from "eco-terrorists" who lie down in front of bulldozers, claims the author. Although his worldview may seem extreme to some, anti-environmentalists' own rantings appear to fully support this position. To quote former President Reagan's interior secretary James Watt, "If the troubles from environmentalists cannot be solved in the jury box or at the ballot box, perhaps the cartridge box should be used." Helvarg demolishes the fiction that anti-environmentalism is a grass-roots movement by demonstrating its massive corporate underpinnings. This powerful investigative reporting should find wide readership.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
"Far fewer than a hundred thousand" Americans, Helvarg maintains, contribute to or actively participate in antienvironmental groups, yet the Wise Use/Property Rights philosophy these groups espouse has encouraged, if not caused, a "startling increase in intimidation, vandalism, and violence directed against grassroots environmental activists." Helvarg traces historical American attitudes toward the environment and the development, during the Reagan-Bush years, of the Wise Use Movement. He spells out the role in that movement of timber, mining, and grazing interests in the West and land developers in the East, and the Beltway contributions of free-market think tanks, New Right lobbyists, industry-front groups, and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The success of this antienvironmental backlash in achieving media credibility and its legal tactics--SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation)--and theories (especially Richard Epstein's "takings" doctrine) are among Helvarg's more interesting subjects. His most sensational stories, however, give specifics on the harassment of and the violence against green activists around the country and the sorry tale of the FBI's simultaneous fantasizing about "ecoterrorism" and their reluctance to pursue antienvironmental violence. This is a revealing investigation of the people and the ideas at the heart of the numerically weak but politically strong Wise Use/Property Rights Movement. Mary Carroll
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More About the Author
David Helvarg is President of the Blue Frontier Campaign (www.bluefront.org) and the author of four books, Blue Frontier, The War Against the Greens, 50 Ways to Save the Ocean and Rescue Warriors. He's editor of the Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide, organizer of several 'Blue Vision' Summits for ocean activists, and winner of Coastal Living Magazine's 2005 Leadership Award and the 2007 Herman Melville literary Award. Helvarg worked as a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America, covered a range of issues from military science to the AIDS epidemic, and reported from every continent including Antarctica. An award-winning journalist, he produced more than 40 broadcast documentaries for PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others. His print work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, LA Times, Smithsonian, Popular Science, Sierra, and The Nation. He's done radio work for Marketplace, AP radio, and Pacifica. He's led workshops for journalists in Poland, Turkey, Tunisia, Slovakia and Washington DC. He is a licensed Private Investigator, body-surfer and scuba diver.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vast Documentation of Violence and Intimidation,
By J.W.K (Nagano, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The War Against the Greens: The "Wise-Use" Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence (Hardcover)
Antitoxics activist Paula Siemers remembers the night two men attacked and knifed her on a Cincinnati street near her home, following earlier incidents of harassment in which she'd been stoned and her house set on fire... "After they cut my throat they poured water in it from the river and said, 'Now you'll have something to sue about,'" says Stephanie McGuire, an activist who was raped and tortured by three men in camouflage after she protested water pollution on the Fenholloway River... "We think it was murder," says a friend of Leroy Jackson, a Native American environmentalist whose body was found by the side a New Mexico highway several days before he was scheduled to fly to Washington to testify against clear-cut logging on the Navajo reservation... "I was driving home from a concert and saw a glow in the mist. By the time I got to my house a mile and a half in from the highway it was burned to the ground," recalls Greenpeace USA's toxics coordinator Pat Costner of the arson fire that destroyed her home... "We were told if we killed any of them there was $40,000 that was there to defend us in court or to help us get away," says Ed Knight, an ex-logger and Hell's Angel describing how he was hired to lie in ambush with an Uzi, waiting to shoot Earth Firsters in the California woods... And on and on the stories go, told in crystal clear prose, documented with footnotes abundant, by this veteran journalist and private investigator, David Helvarg. Had I come across this book before reading "Toxic Sludge is Good for You" and "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future," these stories would seem less credible, but the vast accumulation of evidence supporting corporate violence against ordinary citizens and envrionmentalists is now beyond dispute. This bafflingly unavailable book is ESSENTIAL READING for anyone attempting to understand the environmental movement and its challenges.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Honest and real story,
By Harvey Sherman (Sebastopol, CA, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The War Against the Greens: The Wise Use Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence (Paperback)
Well written and honest story of how our country treats those who are trying to protect the environment in a peaceful way.
1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Seriously biased!,
This review is from: The War Against the Greens: The Wise Use Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence (Paperback)
Sounds very one-sided; has anyone else read this book? Is there a non-biased view of the Wise Use movement?
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