On Saturday, June 27, we had a nice turnout at Book Soup in West Hollywood, with “Book TV” in the house, really smart questions and a good discussion. A couple of nice surprises. First, Jonathan Paul’s sister Alexandra Paul — you once knew her as Lt. Holden on ‘Baywatch’ — turned up with her husband Ian and made a couple observations that made me realize I was going to be asked for a lot more than just telling Rod Coronado’s story on this tour.  Ian pointed out that I kept on referring to this book as a book about “terrorism” and referring to the people in it as eco-terrorists.  The book I wrote is an argument that hardcore direct action activists like Rodney are NOT terrorists, in their intentions or their acts, and that the expansion of the use of the word “terrorism” is something that the civil rights and environmental communities should be actively resisting. Which, for various reasons probably including expediency and even patriotism, has not been happening. But I realize now I’ll have to be constantly making this clear.

Alexandra also asked me directly if I felt that actions like Rod’s were effective, and I had a waffling answer. Because sometimes they were not, but a couple times they were.  At Oregon State Univerity in Corvallis, the experimental mink farm was shut down about 2 years after the fire and never restarted again, partly (but not entirely) because of the attack. At other universities, the attacks were an excuse to rebuild bigger and better and have more animal experiments than ever. And several times the animals who were liberated were thrown into chaos, injured and eventually killed. So the legacy is mixed. The intention, however, is not.

The most effective action Rod ever did was sinking the whaling boats in Iceland for the Sea Shepherds  in 1986, and that steered us into a discussion of what IS effective right now, which, ironically, is the Sea Shepherds show, “Whale Wars.” The show has terrific ratings, kids everywhere are watching it, and it is making a huge difference in the debate about whaling.

Alexandra and I talked afterward, and she was of the opinion that we need the radical actions in order to push the agenda and to make space for the more conservative or at least well-behaved groups like NRDC or Sierra Club. This has been the argument since the dawn of the 1980s, when then Earth First! and more radical elements came out of the desert and began drinking in public bars. And that is still true now, but the legislative and law enforcement backlash against radical direct action has definitely made life more dangerous, more prone to surveillance and infiltration, and more exposed to conspiracy than ever before. So we’re going to go on talking about this.

The other nice thing about Saturday’s event was that it was taped by C-Span’s “Book TV” program. The tech told me it would air in about two weeks, so it’ll be around the weekend of July 10-12, I’d imagine. But you can look it up on the Book TV schedule page.

From July 8 thru 14, I’ll be on tour from Seattle to San Francisco. See my “Tour” page for details.

More on Rod’s current parole conditions in a separate post.

dk