M a r k D i l l e y

Free’s sentence seemed pretty extreme, even for state of the United States, as a response to eco-sabotage. However, in the current political climate, this situation isn’t even shocking anymore. The state has exploited the greatly increased fear of terrorism during the past few years to vilify militant eco-saboteurs as “terrorists.” Personally, I don’t think that property destruction is terrorism at all, especially when the property being destroyed is directly related to the issue being acted upon. Terrorism involves harm committed to people, usually the destruction of lives, usually the lives of people who have no direct connection to, or influence upon, the issues or injustices that (supposedly) motivated the terrorists. In other words, it involves physical violence committed against innocent human beings. This sort of game, as far as I’m concerned, is very different from the acts of eco-sabotage that our government is choosing to call "terrorism."