i have difficulties talking to conservatives about green building. some people tend to assume you are a quack when you talk about these things. (remember the issues we see as commonplace aren't generally understood by the public who don't even know the difference between an architect and a civil engineer) the people who do this sort of thing aren't helping. some beligerant asshole can continue to call me a "lradical iberal" with seething anger solely because i support the enviroment. the real people making a difference on this issue are the designers and builders who are trying to sell green architecture to the public and to develop in a way that is more sensitive to the environment. the kind of people who set buildings on fire have essentially lost faith in civilization.
people need to be educated, not frightened. lots of developers ask us about how to build more environmentally sensitive. what may be common sense for us is for some people a far off place, and they don't know where to begin. i don't think all of these builders are evil, or deserve to have this done to them.
the developer in these cases are typically larger corporate groups, not an individual. as with capital, I don't believe a corporation deserves the same legal status a living creature.
What a great day for a run home.
Pix,
I think to dismiss corporations as non-entities is dangerous, they simply represent a group of people with a common goal. ELF is a corporation of a different color trying to force its ideal on others/ protect what it values. Corporations are social/economic/political blocks of individuals protecting their common values/ and trying to force their ideals on others.
I think forcing others to comply isn't "sustainable", gained ground by force requires force to maintain. I won't go down that road.
Meta,
Not to hijack, further, I got into KMFDM because of Aiden Hughes, the guy doing all the art.
I am not against direct action, just anonymous direct action. If you think there is a compelling reason to burn down those houses, stand up and give us more than a 6 word justification for it and take your lashes for it. If the only way you are willing to make such a violent statement is that no one will know it was you, then you don't have a good enough reason yet.
In Seattle, they went toe to toe with the WTO. I can support that, they were willing to be arrested or beaten, they had a good argument and they were willing to stand up and be counted. The ELF folks don't even hold a candle to that class of dissent.
j
Also, I am not against corporations, if they are open and transparent. If you try to use the anonymity of a corporation to do things you don't want your name put to, I am against that too.
j
This is going back a few posts but I find it utterly ironic that these people torched these houses, emitting God knows how much carbon and perhaps toxic fumes into the air, as under the pretense of protecting the environment.
I agree with you wholeheartedly le bossman, people do need to be educated instead of frightened when it comes to environmentalism. IMHO scare tactics don't work, they only hinder the process.
everyone keeps saying these are someone's homes, but aren't they spec houses built to show off some awful builder's idea of trends that is eventually sold to the highest bidder?
I don't see what good can come out of the destruction of these houses. The developer will get a nice insurance payout and not be hurt at all financially by this. He or she may even be able to win an additional settlement in a civil trial if the perpetrators are ever caught. It will probably only serve to drive the developer away from doing anything remotely green in the future.
One caveat - some commenters over at Treehugger noted that the houses had sat on the market for months and speculated that the arson may have been an inside job.
i don't think there is a line between them quizzical. they are on the same side.
i understand desire, wanting what others have. that is sorta human, if unethical if acted on in certain ways...but wanting to keep things away from others...somehow i think this kind of idea comes from folks who gots too much. what a waste.
this is clearly fascist terrorism; acting out only to control people through fear. that is not a reasonable way to change the world in a good way.
Have you ever been in an auto accident? What happened to your insurance afterwards?
Did you ever have a friend who got in 3 or 4 accidents in as many years? Their insurance company dropped their policy and no other company would insure them.
I am guessing that this is the long term plan of ELF (not condoning it, just explaining it).
To those who think this is terrorism, how do you feel about the Boston Tea Party? They were anonymous. They destroyed capital.
How can we be proud of one act and reject the other?
Semantics play a huge part in all these arguments. Maybe the Boston Tea Party was terrorism, and maybe some of us supported that. Do we therefore support terrorism? No one in this day and age would admit to supporting terrorism. By changing our language, the Bush administration has changed the way we think and talk about politics.
My real problem with ELF is that their goals are poorly defined, poorly thought out, and unrealizable. Do they really think burning down the Vail lodge or these houses will bring about worldwide ecological revolution? Or the collapse of civilization? No. They're like pesky mosquitos -- annoying but not stopping the corporate interests that they're against.
this is not the same ballgame as your car insurance at all. car insurance mainly covers your liability for harming others. because the sky's the limit for liability claims, car insurers don't want to carry potentially high risk clients.
when a house burns down (and no one is injured), it is a simple property damage claim. it is much less risky to insure for property damage because property has a fixed and finite value.
elf would have to vandalize or destroy a quite significant percentage of new houses built every year for it to make sense for insurance companies to walk away from covering developers/builders.
jump -- the only difference (and I'm willing to concede your point) is the wanton destruction of both property and life -- simply to make a political point.
Did those idiots think about the materials that they were wasting as they torched these houses? I'm pretty sure that burning vynil siding contributes air pollution too (slightly). The owners of those houses will just rebuild using more precious natural rescources. Actions like these hurt the environment and environemtal causes.
I consider myself a moderate environmetalist and hate McMansions... but I think it would be kinda funny if the owners publically built new houses twice the size and twice as gaudy as the old ones just out of spite... while the members of this radical group watched from a TV at their new home (prison). In actuality, I hope that the owners take the high road and build good, eco-friendly houses, not because some morons torched their houses but because it's just a smart thing to do.
Not true over the long haul, but especially for the type of short term property insurance a developer would be carrying during construction, the value of the property is a lot easier to pin down for insurance purposes than it is to establish potential liability in the same situation.
The Boston Tea party was far from Anonymous, the "Sons of Liberty" led by Samuel Adams did it. They had been meeting publicly for weeks and were very open about it. Some of their meetings are reported as exceeding 5000 people. They had made demands of the Governor, who agreed to concessions but did not fulfill his side. 8000 Bostonians (or is it Bosstones) for sure knew who did it. They were revolutionaries, whereas the anonymous ELF are just criminals.
j
I believe the Sons of Liberty acted anonymously when the committed the "tea party".
It is my understanding that the Sons of Liberty held public protests, but when they committed the "tea party", they were disguised (thinly) as Native Americans. I do not believe that The Sons of Liberty officially took credit or responsibility for this act. No note was left. No letters taking responsibility signed.
I do not believe that Samuel Adams actually took part in the 'tea party" either. He ended the final protest meeting with the quote "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country". After which about 80 members (all anonymous) the Sons of Liberty committed the act.
Sons of Liberty was also a blanket organization name in the same manner ELF is: no leader, no structure, anyone was free to use (or variations of) for their actions.
The Sons of Liberty used large public gatherings to organize and recruit, they were in the open, they posted freedom poles and used them to communicate IN THE OPEN with like minded individuals throughout the colony. There may not have been formal leaders, but there were definitely leaders and it was common knowledge who they were, because of the afore mentioned method of organizing and recruiting. They didn't do it in the dark.
Ultimately what separates the Sons from ELF is that the Sons were a "popular" movement, that had widespread support for their ends AND means. ELF may try to claim the former, but surely does not enjoy that distinction for the later.
j
In all fairness Josh, you dodged my point. I stated that the Sons of Liberty protested in public. There isn't need to reiterate that point.
Where I disagreed with you is that the Sons of Liberty did not publicly commit the tea party. They wore disguises and were anonymous. This anonymity was your key difference between the Boston Tea Party and the burning of McMansions.
Your new key difference is "popular support". Wikipedia puts the estimated protest before the tea party at 8,000. This is definitely a minority of those living in Boston at the time. It is an even smaller minority of those in Massachusets, and an infinitesimal minority of those under British rule world wide.
As British citizens (which is what they legally were), the Sons of Liberty held no popular support.
I am not condoning the activities of ELF. But I also strongly disagree with calling them terrorists, eco or otherwise. I hope to have proven in my last few posts, that the terms 'revolutionary' and 'criminal' are very subjective.
I agree, I am off by saying they are completely different and I didn't mean to bog down the discussion with my tangent.
I think I already stated that I don't lump ELF as terrorists, but I do find them criminal. I also stand with Ben Franklin who said the tea ought to be recompensed for.
There are lots of reasons why I dislike ELF, and many reasons why people like them. Anonymity and lack of taking full responsibility, with its attending consequences, being prime among them. The claim that these are the modern day "revolutionaries", using the US revolution as its justification, I also find to be off for the reasons I posted above.
I also agree that the term revolutionary is subjective, the term criminal I would argue isn't. Both the tea party folks and the ELF are criminals, but only the Bostonians were revolutionary (in my subjective view).
The Allies won WWII -- the US was morally wrong to incarcerate Americans of Japanese descent during that war -- our victory doesn't mean that shameful act was swept under the carpet or that the "victors" rewrote history to expunge that deed from the record. there might have been some efforts to do so, but our free society prevented that from happening.
it's about the character of the "society" that wins and the moral foundation of their cause. the Nazi's would have done as you suggest -- it's much less possible in a true democracy.
no matter who "wins", the reckless and selfish sacrifice of innocent human life or liberty to make a political point is fundamentally wrong -- Timothy McVeigh was wrong; Osama ben Laden was wrong; President Roosevelt was wrong.
I'm a bit late to the discussion, and briefly skimmed all the posts, and only found one mention of the speculation that this may have been an inside job.
The way that home builders/developers are bleeding money in this real estate market it sure seems plausible that collecting a quick insurance payout would look better than sitting on unsold properties...or selling at a loss.
Again, it's only speculation, but the ELF's history of idiocy makes them a quite easy scapegoat.
I don't know about suburban seattle...but on my ventures to the exurbs...even core cities in many cases...there are unfinished or vacant homes all over the place. Convenience fires sure seem like a good way to get that housing stock oversupply down.
mcmansions are mctorched...
i have difficulties talking to conservatives about green building. some people tend to assume you are a quack when you talk about these things. (remember the issues we see as commonplace aren't generally understood by the public who don't even know the difference between an architect and a civil engineer) the people who do this sort of thing aren't helping. some beligerant asshole can continue to call me a "lradical iberal" with seething anger solely because i support the enviroment. the real people making a difference on this issue are the designers and builders who are trying to sell green architecture to the public and to develop in a way that is more sensitive to the environment. the kind of people who set buildings on fire have essentially lost faith in civilization.
people need to be educated, not frightened. lots of developers ask us about how to build more environmentally sensitive. what may be common sense for us is for some people a far off place, and they don't know where to begin. i don't think all of these builders are evil, or deserve to have this done to them.
the developer in these cases are typically larger corporate groups, not an individual. as with capital, I don't believe a corporation deserves the same legal status a living creature.
^ how could you forget Ian MacKaye?!?
1. pretty sure thats KMFDM, but I never really got into them enough to be sure. if I'm right its only because I know it from your highlighted line.
2. yupster, rather unfortunate though. I came into hardcore/punk when the Krishna thing was still alive so its been on my radar ever since.
What a great day for a run home.
Pix,
I think to dismiss corporations as non-entities is dangerous, they simply represent a group of people with a common goal. ELF is a corporation of a different color trying to force its ideal on others/ protect what it values. Corporations are social/economic/political blocks of individuals protecting their common values/ and trying to force their ideals on others.
I think forcing others to comply isn't "sustainable", gained ground by force requires force to maintain. I won't go down that road.
Meta,
Not to hijack, further, I got into KMFDM because of Aiden Hughes, the guy doing all the art.
j
I am not against direct action, just anonymous direct action. If you think there is a compelling reason to burn down those houses, stand up and give us more than a 6 word justification for it and take your lashes for it. If the only way you are willing to make such a violent statement is that no one will know it was you, then you don't have a good enough reason yet.
In Seattle, they went toe to toe with the WTO. I can support that, they were willing to be arrested or beaten, they had a good argument and they were willing to stand up and be counted. The ELF folks don't even hold a candle to that class of dissent.
j
Also, I am not against corporations, if they are open and transparent. If you try to use the anonymity of a corporation to do things you don't want your name put to, I am against that too.
j
This is going back a few posts but I find it utterly ironic that these people torched these houses, emitting God knows how much carbon and perhaps toxic fumes into the air, as under the pretense of protecting the environment.
I agree with you wholeheartedly le bossman, people do need to be educated instead of frightened when it comes to environmentalism. IMHO scare tactics don't work, they only hinder the process.
everyone keeps saying these are someone's homes, but aren't they spec houses built to show off some awful builder's idea of trends that is eventually sold to the highest bidder?
^ pretty much
yeah, but its still somebody's house tho, even if they have no taste.
there's a very, very thin line between this and the work of a madman in Oklahoma:
the unabomber thought his goals were noble, too.
I don't see what good can come out of the destruction of these houses. The developer will get a nice insurance payout and not be hurt at all financially by this. He or she may even be able to win an additional settlement in a civil trial if the perpetrators are ever caught. It will probably only serve to drive the developer away from doing anything remotely green in the future.
One caveat - some commenters over at Treehugger noted that the houses had sat on the market for months and speculated that the arson may have been an inside job.
i don't think there is a line between them quizzical. they are on the same side.
i understand desire, wanting what others have. that is sorta human, if unethical if acted on in certain ways...but wanting to keep things away from others...somehow i think this kind of idea comes from folks who gots too much. what a waste.
this is clearly fascist terrorism; acting out only to control people through fear. that is not a reasonable way to change the world in a good way.
Have you ever been in an auto accident? What happened to your insurance afterwards?
Did you ever have a friend who got in 3 or 4 accidents in as many years? Their insurance company dropped their policy and no other company would insure them.
I am guessing that this is the long term plan of ELF (not condoning it, just explaining it).
To those who think this is terrorism, how do you feel about the Boston Tea Party? They were anonymous. They destroyed capital.
How can we be proud of one act and reject the other?
Seriously, if your going to commit acts of revolutionary terrorism, I've got a much better target:
During the State of the Union address please.
Semantics play a huge part in all these arguments. Maybe the Boston Tea Party was terrorism, and maybe some of us supported that. Do we therefore support terrorism? No one in this day and age would admit to supporting terrorism. By changing our language, the Bush administration has changed the way we think and talk about politics.
My real problem with ELF is that their goals are poorly defined, poorly thought out, and unrealizable. Do they really think burning down the Vail lodge or these houses will bring about worldwide ecological revolution? Or the collapse of civilization? No. They're like pesky mosquitos -- annoying but not stopping the corporate interests that they're against.
rt,
this is not the same ballgame as your car insurance at all. car insurance mainly covers your liability for harming others. because the sky's the limit for liability claims, car insurers don't want to carry potentially high risk clients.
when a house burns down (and no one is injured), it is a simple property damage claim. it is much less risky to insure for property damage because property has a fixed and finite value.
elf would have to vandalize or destroy a quite significant percentage of new houses built every year for it to make sense for insurance companies to walk away from covering developers/builders.
jump -- the only difference (and I'm willing to concede your point) is the wanton destruction of both property and life -- simply to make a political point.
Did those idiots think about the materials that they were wasting as they torched these houses? I'm pretty sure that burning vynil siding contributes air pollution too (slightly). The owners of those houses will just rebuild using more precious natural rescources. Actions like these hurt the environment and environemtal causes.
I consider myself a moderate environmetalist and hate McMansions... but I think it would be kinda funny if the owners publically built new houses twice the size and twice as gaudy as the old ones just out of spite... while the members of this radical group watched from a TV at their new home (prison). In actuality, I hope that the owners take the high road and build good, eco-friendly houses, not because some morons torched their houses but because it's just a smart thing to do.
Sorry 4arch, but I am politely reminding you that is not true.
Not true over the long haul, but especially for the type of short term property insurance a developer would be carrying during construction, the value of the property is a lot easier to pin down for insurance purposes than it is to establish potential liability in the same situation.
alright, I see what you mean.
The Boston Tea party was far from Anonymous, the "Sons of Liberty" led by Samuel Adams did it. They had been meeting publicly for weeks and were very open about it. Some of their meetings are reported as exceeding 5000 people. They had made demands of the Governor, who agreed to concessions but did not fulfill his side. 8000 Bostonians (or is it Bosstones) for sure knew who did it. They were revolutionaries, whereas the anonymous ELF are just criminals.
j
Is it just me, or is "Sons of Liberty" the most badass name for a bunch of revolutionary terrorists ever?
as well as"Guns of the Patriots"
and the group name "the Lalelulelo"
LOL!
joshcookie -
I believe the Sons of Liberty acted anonymously when the committed the "tea party".
It is my understanding that the Sons of Liberty held public protests, but when they committed the "tea party", they were disguised (thinly) as Native Americans. I do not believe that The Sons of Liberty officially took credit or responsibility for this act. No note was left. No letters taking responsibility signed.
I do not believe that Samuel Adams actually took part in the 'tea party" either. He ended the final protest meeting with the quote "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country". After which about 80 members (all anonymous) the Sons of Liberty committed the act.
Sons of Liberty was also a blanket organization name in the same manner ELF is: no leader, no structure, anyone was free to use (or variations of) for their actions.
go ELF !
got any chapters in NV or OH ?
...dumbass, ugly houses pretending to be green...
on a somewhat random tangent:
last night after my back and forth about music with meta I listened to this:
Ronnie James can do no wrong in my eyes!
The Sons of Liberty used large public gatherings to organize and recruit, they were in the open, they posted freedom poles and used them to communicate IN THE OPEN with like minded individuals throughout the colony. There may not have been formal leaders, but there were definitely leaders and it was common knowledge who they were, because of the afore mentioned method of organizing and recruiting. They didn't do it in the dark.
Ultimately what separates the Sons from ELF is that the Sons were a "popular" movement, that had widespread support for their ends AND means. ELF may try to claim the former, but surely does not enjoy that distinction for the later.
j
didn't lisa "left-eye" lopez burn down a mcmansion like 10 years ago? she was pretty cool...was she an elf too?
In all fairness Josh, you dodged my point. I stated that the Sons of Liberty protested in public. There isn't need to reiterate that point.
Where I disagreed with you is that the Sons of Liberty did not publicly commit the tea party. They wore disguises and were anonymous. This anonymity was your key difference between the Boston Tea Party and the burning of McMansions.
Your new key difference is "popular support". Wikipedia puts the estimated protest before the tea party at 8,000. This is definitely a minority of those living in Boston at the time. It is an even smaller minority of those in Massachusets, and an infinitesimal minority of those under British rule world wide.
As British citizens (which is what they legally were), the Sons of Liberty held no popular support.
I am not condoning the activities of ELF. But I also strongly disagree with calling them terrorists, eco or otherwise. I hope to have proven in my last few posts, that the terms 'revolutionary' and 'criminal' are very subjective.
I agree, I am off by saying they are completely different and I didn't mean to bog down the discussion with my tangent.
I think I already stated that I don't lump ELF as terrorists, but I do find them criminal. I also stand with Ben Franklin who said the tea ought to be recompensed for.
There are lots of reasons why I dislike ELF, and many reasons why people like them. Anonymity and lack of taking full responsibility, with its attending consequences, being prime among them. The claim that these are the modern day "revolutionaries", using the US revolution as its justification, I also find to be off for the reasons I posted above.
I also agree that the term revolutionary is subjective, the term criminal I would argue isn't. Both the tea party folks and the ELF are criminals, but only the Bostonians were revolutionary (in my subjective view).
Josh - I can respect that view.
its only terrorism if ya lose...
man, my image posts keep getting deleted.
Sorry Paul!
so vado ... if islamic fundamentalists win, then 9/11 wasn't terrorism?
what sort of f**ked up logic is that?
don't the winners always write the history books?
The Allies won WWII -- the US was morally wrong to incarcerate Americans of Japanese descent during that war -- our victory doesn't mean that shameful act was swept under the carpet or that the "victors" rewrote history to expunge that deed from the record. there might have been some efforts to do so, but our free society prevented that from happening.
it's about the character of the "society" that wins and the moral foundation of their cause. the Nazi's would have done as you suggest -- it's much less possible in a true democracy.
no matter who "wins", the reckless and selfish sacrifice of innocent human life or liberty to make a political point is fundamentally wrong -- Timothy McVeigh was wrong; Osama ben Laden was wrong; President Roosevelt was wrong.
I'm a bit late to the discussion, and briefly skimmed all the posts, and only found one mention of the speculation that this may have been an inside job.
The way that home builders/developers are bleeding money in this real estate market it sure seems plausible that collecting a quick insurance payout would look better than sitting on unsold properties...or selling at a loss.
Again, it's only speculation, but the ELF's history of idiocy makes them a quite easy scapegoat.
I don't know about suburban seattle...but on my ventures to the exurbs...even core cities in many cases...there are unfinished or vacant homes all over the place. Convenience fires sure seem like a good way to get that housing stock oversupply down.
what possible charges and sentences can the builder/developer get if found that it was an inside job? besides the obvious arson.
well they didnt win did they?
is it an even more insidious form of terrorism building the capitalist/consumerist mcmansion in the first place?
when will we get over ourselves & learn a little respect for the planet?
why should we respect a planet with finite oil & gas resources?
as soon as i make enough money, i'm buying a spaceship and headed to the next galaxy
I know man, fuck this place.
Goddamn panda cubs eatin' all the goddamned bamboo and fucking Chinese burnin' all the oil.
^ insurance fraud
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