Eco-What-ists? Rantings of a Long-Term Activist

Eugene PeaceWork's The Peace Pages. (Spring 2007).

By Peg Morton

About a year ago – I can’t remember exactly when – I read in the newspaper that a group of “eco-terrorists” had been rounded up and was to be tried here in Eugene. I found myself propelled to those hearings – my heart reaching out – but (because I did not know them and did not know their stories) with many questions. I found very few of my peace activist friends in the courtroom, and so I have to ask why I was there and they were not. My answer is embedded in my own story: I have learned that I am related to all those who care deeply about the future of our planet and about true justice, an end to poverty, an end to war. I have disagreed, sometimes vigorously, with tactics that some use. But we are family.

I’m in my mid-70s now. My life-long “career,” despite various jobs, professions, and degrees, has really been activism. It began in the 1950s when, as an undergraduate at Oberlin College, I joined an exchange program with a Black college in Alabama, where I experienced the “colored” water fountains, rest rooms, and waiting rooms, and riding illegally in the back of buses. In graduate school, I helped organize an intercollegiate peace conference.

As a young adult with babies, I served in the League of Woman Voters, building organizing skills and learning the importance of careful study before action. In the Civil Rights Movement, I worked with a local NAACP chapter on housing integration, and then, in another community, on school integration. I served as a Democratic precinct committeeman (elected), wheeling my baby around the neighborhood, driving people to the polls, and, as a school parent, working to end corporal punishment and provide equal opportunities for girls (shop and sports). Later, I plunged into the Central America solidarity movement, joining the Pledge of Resistance to the contra war in Nicaragua, going on many delegations, studying Spanish, making presentations… Well, you get the drift.

My Philosophy of Nonviolence
I am a Quaker and believe deeply in the philosophy of nonviolence – or to put it more actively, satyagraha (Soul, or Truth Force – not only in its spiritual ethical role but also in its effectiveness. From time to time over the years, there have been groups in the Peace Movement with whom I emphatically disagreed over tactics and attitudes. During the Vietnam War, when students and others in our Southern Illinois University town began to throw rocks and break windows, our Quaker group began regular silent vigils, inviting others to join us. I was never in contact with the Weathermen, but they believed that the destruction of property would help end the war. We were, in a sense, parallel movements, all working toward the same goal. Later, here in Eugene, as we stood at the Federal Building opposing the Iraq embargo, I found myself annoyed at those who covered their faces and yelled curses at the traffic and at the police as they drove by.

A fundamental question defined our differences: “Do the ends justify the means?” The groups in which I participated believed (and believe) that the means and the ends are all one strand that cannot be separated. The means will fundamentally affect the end result. We believe that nonviolent strategies have been and can be extremely effective, as in the Gandhian movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Other groups believe that one must compromise to reach the sought-after results. Importantly, however, if I understand correctly, these groups were and are committed to not causing death, to not taking lives.

With the 90s came a surge. Young adults, some very young, were everywhere – in the trees and on the streets – and especially in and around Eugene. I was heartened by this upsurge of environmental and social justice activism: Food Not Bombs, Food Not Lawns, and informal schools that sprouted in my Whittaker neighborhood… I found myself slandered (not personally but categorically) – well, scoffed at – in zines and on the alley walls of Grower’s Market: I, a pacifist, was “passive.” Standing on street corners with signs will get us nowhere, they said. We were being challenged to take risks, to have courage.

This was good for thoughtful reflection. Although I will always believe that the actions in which I have been involved over the years (including standing on street corners with signs) have been effective to one degree or another, I also believed – and I still believe – that our nonviolent peace movement could be challenged to take more risks, as individuals to make more sacrifices. I think that this is happening. It needs to happen much more.

When Social Activism Turns Violent
I visited the tree-sitters at Fall Creek and have listened to stories from tree-sits in other locations. These people love the ancient forest and are grief-stricken and angry about the ecological consequences of its destruction. They are putting their lives on the line to save old-growth trees. I deeply admire their committed, long-term effort, their hard and sometimes dangerous work. I watched a video of a small group in California chained together and to a tree. Instead of cutting the chains, the police pepper-sprayed each one, including their eyes, as they sat there silently. I have been happy to redirect some of my federal military taxes to support tree-sitters. I wish that more of us were more informed about what they’ve been doing.

I disagree with many of the attitudes and strategies that have been used by some groups in the very diverse movement that rose up in the ‘90s. I want to participate in actions that express firmness and commitment to a goal but that are also friendly, respectful, and open. I want to listen to all points of view and to understand my adversaries as human beings. I believe that we in the nonviolent movement for peace and justice must be willing to make sacrifices as great as those of our men and women in the military. I have engaged in fasts. I hope I won’t run away from arrest and that I will risk arrest when I feel led in the Spirit to do so, and I will deal with the legal consequences as they arise. Am I willing to risk my life? I don’t know. But our soldiers do every day.

I have disagreed with the underground movement that has engaged in property destruction – from SUVs to logging trucks to various buildings. However, the actions of these people – as far as I know – have not killed or injured a single person. The label eco-terrorists links them to true terrorists who engage widely in political murder. I was and am horrified by the length of Jeffrey Luers’ sentence, and I wonder who is paying for the far worse crimes that are being wrought on our precious environment. When I was serving my brief three months as a prisoner of conscience in a federal minimum-security prison, another inmate was a young woman who had participated in the burning of a logging truck serving her sentence of several years with dignity. She also received a huge fine that will follow her most of her life. Her punishment is excessive, but far less so than that of Jeffrey Luers, who is serving 22+ years in a maximum-security prison. Excessive sentencing is one reason that we have more prisoners per person than any other industrialized country.

In Chiapas in the late 90s, I had the privilege of meeting Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who had lived and worked there for more than 40 years supporting indigenous people. I asked him how people who believe in nonviolence should respond to guerrilla and other movements that use violence. He told me that we must look at guerilla movements in context: We must first understand the violence of a system that causes abject poverty (and, I would add, a system that the U.S. government has actively supported over the years). Those who are crushed into starvation (and then some) sometimes choose to rise up, using arms to fight for a better life. They have nothing to lose. As privileged, white North Americans, how can we judge these people? Instead – especially because we are complicit in their poverty – we need to find ways to deepen our understanding and to educate ourselves about the economic basis for their poverty, as well as the richness and beauty of their cultures.

What Can We Do?
We can work and keep working to change the system. In fact, we especially need to bear witness to U.S. support of the use by the military of these countries of torture, massacre, assassination, and the disappearances of teachers, journalists, labor leaders, human rights lawyers, and entire villages of women, children, and men – as well as of the guerrilla fighters. We live in societies where violence is taught from early childhood on and exonerated, excused, and used as primary instruments of government.

Some people in the peace movement are quick to distance themselves from those with different attitudes about the use of property destruction. I think we need to recognize that we are part of the same movement. Of course, we need to – in fact, we must – challenge each other. But we need also to focus our attention, each in the group of our choice, on our broader goals. All of us need to always remain aware of the violence of the system that surrounds and engulfs us.
This group of “eco-saboteurs” has been rounded up and is on trial with huge publicity. That perhaps is one way the government is placing a smokescreen on the violence and destruction in the Middle East. It is my heartfelt hope that their sentences will not be excessive. It is my hope that we will support them as they serve their sentence, and, most importantly, that their actions and the consequences will help raise our consciousness to the seriousness of environmental destruction. These young people took action knowing that they were taking huge risks. I disagree with their actions, but I honor their courage and their commitment to saving an Earth that is being destroyed, especially by stupidity and greed in the United States. I ask: “How will we, can we, call attention to and act effectively in response to this destruction, this death that is happening before our eyes”?

Peg Morton is a 76-year-old retired rural mental health counselor, Quaker activist, and long-term war-tax resister. She served three months in federal prison for an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. In November 2003, she and 27 others peacefully crossed into Fort Benning (GA), site of the notorious School of the Americas, to commemorate the victims of SOA violence in Latin America and to call for SOA’s closure.


Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice activist. He was charged in federal court on many counts of arson, property destruction and conspiracy, all relating to two incidents in Oregon in 2001. Until recently, Daniel was offered two choices by the government: cooperate by informing on other people, or go to trial and face life in prison. His only real option was to plead not guilty until he could reach a resolution of the case that permitted him to honor his principles. As a result of months of litigation and negotiation, Daniel was able to admit to his role in these two incidents, while not implicating or identifying any other people who might have been involved. The government will seek a sentence of eight years, while Daniel's lawyers will seek a sentence of no more than 63 months at his June 4th sentencing hearing.