To the Editor:
In an otherwise excellent and insightful opinion piece ("The True Face of the New Right," May 3, 1995), Christopher Houpt '98 incorrectly characterized anarchists and Earth First!ers as advocates of violence. As an anarchist, a supporter of Earth First! and a pacifist, I was deeply disappointed to see two important non-violent movements misrepresented in this way.
Anarchists do not promote chaos and violence. We believe that every human being deserves to be completely free, and we seek the elimination of governments, corporations and other hierarchical institutions. Because we believe that it is wrong for any human being to attempt to exercise power over another human being, many anarchists are pacifists. We oppose state terrorism, corporate terrorism and individual terrorism. Throughout the history of our movement, anarchists such as Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, Noam Chomsky and George Lakey have made important contributions to the struggle for peace and against militarism. Indeed, pacifist anarchists are the only people who truly oppose all forms of violence and coercion.
Earth First! is also a non-violent movement. While some Earth First!ers do believe that in certain extreme circumstances it is justifiable to sabotage machinery, those Earth First!ers who do sabotage machinery are always extremely careful to make sure that they do not harm any human beings or in any way put the workers who use the machinery in danger. Earth First! is trying to put an end to the violence we are doing to other species and to the Earth by limiting the capacity of corporations and governments to wage war against the planet.
Having said this, I do wish to thank Christopher Houpt for helping to expose the connections between right-wing rhetoric and terrorist violence. We must all stand together in opposition to terrorism -- whether it is the terrorism of renegade militia members blowing up a building in Oklahoma or the terrorism of American pilots bombing buildings in Baghdad. Freedom can only exist in the absence of violence.
