PWI Editor's Note: This text is excerpted from ECODEFENSE: A Field Guide To Monkeywrenching, and is not being reprinted either for sale or profit, or to advocate illegal acts.

The Future of Monkeywrenching

By T.O. Hellenbach

In an era of international tension over acts of bombings, shootings, and mass destruction, the word "terrorism" is a guaranteed headline-grabber and a simplistic brand for anyone's political opposition. Recently, Democratic Representative Pat Williams of Montana used this number one media buzzword to condemn Earth First! announcing his refusal to consider any EF! wilderness proposals while tree spiking continues.

His sense of moral outrage was shared by another public official, Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusettsís colony. The indignant governor refused to negotiate with radical colonists whom he associated with numerous attacks on public and private property. Rebels had attacked his home and trashed the offices of the vice-admiralty courts and the Comptroller of Customs, smashing windows and burning records. For turning a deaf ear, Hutchinson received a harbor full of tea in what came to be known as the "Boston Tea Party." No isolated incident, the destruction of what, in today's economy would be over a hundred thousand dollars of private property was followed three months later by another successful nighttime raid on a tea ship at dock. Elsewhere in the area, citizens put the monkeywrench to the construction of British fortifications by sinking barges loaded with bricks, tipping over supply wagons, and burning hay intended for use as soldiers bedding.

The Tories of yesteryear lacked only the word "terrorism" with which to brand the women and men who created the United States of America. One of those founding radicals, Thomas Jefferson, warned that "strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest." He further wrote, "To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself."

Last century, the institution of slavery was only brought down by a prolonged and determined protest that, at its core, was lawless and destructive of property. Slaves used work slowdowns and feigned illnesses to hurt cotton production. Costly supervision was necessary to prevent deliberate trampling of crops and breaking of tools. At night, cotton fields, barns, and gins were burned. Runaway slaves formed guerrilla bands with poor whites and dispossessed Indians, staging swift raids against plantations.

Even the work of white abolitionists, encouraging runaways and funneling them into safety through the "underground railroad," was destructive of the private economic concerns of those who saw the slave as just another exploitable resource. As with the former British colonial government, the sluggish minds of men in government failed to acknowledge the changing times, and another war was needed to resolve the issues.

To the west the invasion of sacred lands was rarely welcome by the native tribes of America. Survey markers and telegraph poles were favorite, and vulnerable, targets of sabotage. The railroad was attacked by Indians who unbolted the rails, or constructed barriers with stacked ties secured to the rails with freshly cut telegraph wire.

Even the peaceful Hopi were not spared the meddling of industrial society. In 1891 came a plan to move them out of their clustered mesa-top villages and onto single-family plots of private land. After survey markers were destroyed, government troops were dispatched to arrest the leaders responsible. Faced with a roadblock of warriors armed with bows and arrows, the cavalry officer in charge lured out a Hopi delegation to talk terms. The Indians were seized and marched forward as a human shield. Soldiers occupied the village, and native religious leaders made the first of many trips into imprisonment.

Elsewhere in the West, the introduction of barbed wire in the 1880's saw cattlemen attempt to dominate the formerly public grasslands. Fence cutting wars resulted, with small ranchers and farmers forming secret societies with names like the "Owls", the "Javelinas", and the "Blue Devils". Their spies passed information about new fencing at nighttime meetings protected by the use of secret passwords. Sometimes a damaged fence was posted with signs warning against rebuilding. Estimates of fence cutting damage in Texas alone ranged from 20 to 30 million dollars. Typical of government response, it became a more serious crime to cut an illegal fence, than to build one.

Similarly, in New Mexico, small groups of raiders from Hispanic communities calling themselves "Gorras Blancas" ("whitecaps") used fence cutting to resist the takeover of their communal land grants by large Anglo cattle corporations.

Even wild animals resisted the destruction of their homelands under the hooves of invading livestock. Many of the so called "renegade" Wolves, who undertook seemingly wanton attacks on cattle and sheep, were the last surviving members of their packs, who had watched their fellow pack members trapped and killed. Arizona's "Aguila Wolf" ('aguila is Spanish for 'eagle') killed up to 65 sheep in one night. Near Meeker, Colorado, "Rags the Digger" would ruin traplines by digging up traps without tripping them. Many of these avenging Wolves were victims of traps themselves, bearing names like "Crip", "Two Toes", "Three Toes", "Peg Leg", and "Old Lefty".

Whole communities would marshal their resources to kill the last of the Wolves. "Three Toes of Harding County" eluded over 150 men in 13 years of attacking livestock in South Dakota. As recently as 1920, a trapper worked for eight months to kill the famous "Custer Wolf". East of Trinidad, Colorado ran a renegade Wolf called "Old Three Toes", the last of 32 wolves killed in Butler Pasture. This lonely Wolf befriended a rancher's collie, who was penned into a chicken run to keep him away from the Wolf. One night they found freedom together by digging from opposite sides of the fence. The collie never returned home, and was killed weeks later by poison bait. Old Three Toes and her litter of Wolf-collie whelps were discovered shortly thereafter and all were killed.

Throughout most of the land, the Wolf has vanished, barbed wire rules, the natives have lost their sacred soil, and we are largely slaves to the industrial culture born in the coal-fired furnaces of Europe. Resistance, both lawful and lawless, has come and gone, won and lost, and remains more "American" than apple pie. And somewhere, beyond the edge of the ever spreading pavement, are tales of solitary Wolves and Grizzlies, "traditionals" who shun the missionaries, wild lands that know only freedom, and small bands of monkeywrenchers, wild-eyed and unbending. Is there a future for any of them? Or more to the point, can acts of sabotage really influence events? History has proven that resistance can be effective, so let's briefly examine how this is possible.

Most businesses, both large and small, operate to produce a relatively small margin of profit, frequently a single digit percentage of overall gross sales. This small net profit is vulnerable to outside tampering, such as a consumer boycott which reduces sales. A determined campaign of monkeywrenching affects the other end, by increasing operating costs to the point that they cut into profits. The random act of sabotage accomplishes little, but when cautiously repeated, striking weak points again and again, an exploitive corporation is forced to expand their security efforts and related expenses. Repairs of damages, such as abrasives in lubricating oil, result in several costs, including down-time. Since many businesses run on tight budgets or borrowed money, loss of production, even on a temporary basis, becomes costly. Interest payments on borrowed funds increase, payrolls for idled workers must be met, and buyers of finished products become impatient with missed deadlines. Since reputation, as much as other factors, influences credit, imagine the chilling effect on banks, finance companies, equipment manufacturers (who often extend credit to buyers), and insurance companies (who finance anything these days) when they realize that a few operators, working in critical wild lands, are more susceptible to delays in repayment.

Production scheduling is so critical to financial planning that most businesses have various contingencies to minimize the impact of mechanical failure, inclement weather, and other factors. They may anticipate losing an average of two weeks to weather when logging in a certain season. Or there may be plans to rent extra equipment in the event of serious breakdowns. Repeated hits by ecoteurs exhaust the contingencies and cut into the eventual profit.

Some ecotage damage is repaired by funds from insurance companies. If the damage is recurrent, the insurer will increase the deductible, thereby forcing higher out-of-pocket expenses upon the operator. The insurer will also often increase premiums, insist on higher security expenditures and may even cancel coverage. Also, of course, the operator's standing with his insurance company is of critical importance to his lenders.

Increases in security costs include pay for guards, guard dos services, security fencing and lighting, and mundane security measures, like driving all equipment to a single secure location (resulting in higher operating costs and lost work time). Heavy equipment is especially vulnerable to sabotage, with down time often exceeding $50 an hour. Security expenditures can increased by including urban targets like warehouses, mills, and offices as ecotage targets.

In addition, if smaller supporting businesses fear the impact of monkeywrenching against a business to which they sub-contract, they may hesitate to do business, or increase their charges to compensate themselves for also becoming targets.

Ultimately, the entire industry and its financial backers must be made aware that operations in de facto wilderness areas face higher risks and higher costs. Press coverage of monkeywrenching can drive this point home and alert the public in a manner that hurts the corporate image. The charge that monkeywrenching alienates public opinion stems from an incomplete understanding of propaganda and history. Scientific studies of propaganda and the press show that the vast majority of the public remembers the news in only the vaguest outline. Details rapidly fade from memory. Basic concepts like "opposition to logging" are all that are retained. History informs us that direct action engenders as much support as opposition. The American Revolution saw as many colonists enter the Tory ranks as enlisted in the Continental Army. During World War II, as many Frenchmen joined Nazi forces as participated in the famous French Underground. The majority of the public floats noncommittally between the conflicting forces.

Finally, the actions of monkeywrenchers invariably enhance the status and bargaining positions of more "reasonable" opponents. Industry considers mainline environmentalists to be radical until they get a taste of real radical activism. Suddenly the soft-sell of the Sierra Club and other white-shirt-and tie eco-bureaucrats becomes much more attractive and worthy of serious negotiation. These moderate environmentalists must condemn monkeywrenching so as to preserve their own image, but they should take full advantage of the credence it lends to their approach.

As for other types of activism, picketing and sit-ins quickly lose their newsworthiness. Boycotts can't touch primary industries because they lack a consumer market. Even letter writing campaigns and lobbyists are losing ground as the high cost of television advertising places election financing in the hands of well-heeled industrial and labor union PAC's (Political Action Committees set up to undermine campaigns to "reform" laws). In these desperate times, it is difficult to be both close to the Earth and optimistic about her future. The hope that remains is found in the minds of those who care, and the hearts of those few who dare to act.