a saving remnant: “One . . . had betternunderstand that there may, after all,nbe nothing left to save.”nYet in his own life, and sometimes innhis words, Berry holds out the possibilitynof a better future. Like the ChestertoniannDistributionists and SouthernnAgrarians before him, Berry is morenadept at criticism than at prescription,nbut he does sketch out the shape of an”beloved community”: food productionnand distribution organized locally;nponds, streams, and woodlands harvestingna sustainable yield; and a systemnof decentralized, small-scale industries.nMarriage would again haven”at its heart a household that is to somenextent productive” through housewifery,ncarpentry, gardening, woodlotnmanagement, and cottage industry.nEvery American, he says, could regainnsome control over his life by participatingnin food production, by preparingn^^^M^A*^M^te«M^^iM^^n’i at ^n_. in^s^rnmeals again at home, by buying localnproducts, and by trading directly withnfarmers.nBerry, however, also demands anmore painful sacrifice. Concerning thenuse of machines, he notes that “if wenare ever again to have a world fit andnpleasant for little children, we are surelyngoing to have to draw the line wherenit is not easily drawn.” A few pagesnlater, he adds: “We must achieve thencharacter and acquire the skills to livenmuch poorer than we do. We mustnwaste less. We must do more for ourselvesnand each other.” Berry’s truensummons is for a voluntary, secularnwar against materialism in both itsnsocialist and capitalist forms. His tragedynis that this may be a lonely gatheringnin these, the waning years of the SecondnMillennium.nkllan Carlson is the publisher ofnChronicles and the president of ThenRockford Institute.n36/CHRONICLESnHoisting the BlacknFlagnby Gregory McNameenConfessions of an Eco-Warriornby Dave ForemannNew York: Harmony Books;n229 pp., $20.00nDave Foreman grew up on a ranchnin the mountains of New Mexico,nwhere he came of age in the earlyn1960’s. Like many others of his generation,nhe joined the Young Republicansnand campaigned for Barry Goldwater,nwitnessed the near-collapse of Americannsociety in the late 1960’s, andnbegan to realize that the system he hadnbelieved in was out of whack.nConvinced that wild America oughtnto be preserved for the coming generations.nForeman became a conservationist,nthen a congressional lobbyist for thenWilderness Society. When it appearednthat the nation’s leading environmentalngroups were paying more attention tonfundraising dinners than to agitating fornthe preservation of wild places. Foremannfled Washington and, with otherndisaffected colleagues, founded EarthnFirst!, a loosely knit alliance of environmentalnactivists whose motto is “NonCompromise in Defense of MothernEarth!”nThe group took some of its cues andnmuch of its anarchist agenda from thenlate Edward Abbey, whose novel ThenMonkey Wrench Gang, published inn1975, recounts the adventures of angroup of ecosaboteurs who roam thenWest destroying dams and billboards.nIn spite of its cartoonish characters andntransparent plot, Abbey’s book helpednpush radical environmentalism to thenforefront of the ecopolitical movementnin the late 1970’s and early 1980’s,nwhen Earth First! was founded.nIn its decade under Foreman’s tutelagen(it has no official leaders) thenorganization never numbered morenthan a few thousand people. Yet itsnmembers exhibited a special talent fornoutrageous publicity-garnering actsnthat gave Earth First! a presence muchngreater than its numbers would normallynwarrant: installing a plasticn”crack” down the spillway of GlennCanyon Dam, sending a pirate shipnafloat on the waters of Lake Powell innnnpursuit of visiting Interior SecretarynJames Watt, sabotaging bulldozers andnperforming in the dark of night “unauthorizednmaintenance on big yellownmachines” and on other instruments ofnso-called progress.nMuch of Foreman’s thinking derivesnfrom a rural, conservative, Ludditentradition. For his fiery speechmakingnand endorsement of direct action,nhowever, Dave Foreman was early onnbranded a dangerous terrorist by thenfederal government; the FBI set tonwork against him with the same zealnthat it brought against the antiwarnmovement two decades ago, in thendays before the United States learnednto pick enemies who had no chancenwhatever of winning. Typically, thengovernment overestimated the influencenof Foreman’s organization. EarthnFirst! people were harassed and localnchapters infiltrated by agents provocateurs;nin 1989, Foreman and threenothers were arrested on a charge ofnconspiracy to destroy a nuclear powernplant near Phoenix, Arizona. The matternhas yet to come to trial, but earlynreports suggest that the government’snevidence is slim at best. (The informantnassigned to crack Foreman’s innerncircle has admitted as much.)nAll this is enough to have madenDave Foreman something of a celebritynof the kind that generates instant,nfast-buck autobiographies. Having appearednon 60 Minutes and the usualnround of talk shows, in Confessions ofnan Eco-Warrior Foreman has obligednus with just a glimpse or two into hisnprivate life. “I’m not sure what thisnbook is,” the author writes. “It’s not annautobiography or even a memoir. . . .nIt’s not a polemic or a how-to guide. Inguess it’s a litfle bit like an ugly mongrelndog in which you can see the earsnof one breed, the jowls of another, andnso on.”nLike many other environmentalistnauthors. Foreman details the effects ofnthe Industrial Age on our planet: thenclearcutting of the world’s rain forests,nthe loss of biological diversity, the depletionnof the ozone layer, the overgrazingnof public lands. To alleviatenthese. Foreman proposes a radical programnof action not much different fromnthat of Earth First! (from which, itsnranks now swelled with tie-dyed neohippiesnand cause-hoppers, he has latelynresigned). He continues to urge then
January 1975July 26, 2022By The Archive
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