Grupo Ecologico "Earth First"

Karen Parra Velez
Professor Chuck Malefant
ENC 1101
30 March 2012
Is Earth First! the Terrorist or Are We the Terrorists?
Terrorists are defined as people who do disturbing things to the society. They act by self-interest without caring who they might end up harming. They “fight” for causes that nobody understand but them, those purpose do not have any logical reason. They are heartlesspeople. They do not care about anything or anyone. They are self-centered people. They enjoy destroying anything that goes in their way. Therefore, Earth first! is not a terrorist movement.
About.com defines terrorists as people that threat, conspire or attempt to commit any crime with the use of any weapon or dangerous device. When the intent of the crime is determined to be the endangerment ofpublic safety or substantial property damage rather than for "mere personal monetary gain." Therefore, Earth First! is not terrorist. Earth First! is a movement that takes action, real action, that almost anyone would not dare to take; actions that has fundaments and that it would not hurt anybody, instead it would help the earth and everything in it. Even though I am aware that their actions arenot so orthodox, at the same time I understand that is the only way they can act and actually accomplish something in this broken society. If it was not for their audacity in their actions, they would not be able to do anything for the earth. They would not be able to protect it.
Earth First!ers fight for great and beautiful causes. They want to take care of what is left of mother earth, and Ithink is really awesome to have the guts to do what is necessary for earth. As the society we are, those actions are seen as something morally wrong, but then I ask: What is about the desire of protect our home, our earth so wrong that almost all people dare to judge? This society only thinks about money, the benefits that anything could bring us, but we do not even care to stop for a minute to thinkabout what things are we giving up to get what we want. For example, even though we are aware of the global warming, what is happening to earth and how we can act to stop it, we will not do anything to at least try to stop it, because what we need depends on the resources that mother earth has. There is no one to be judge because each one of us is acting based on what we have been taught. ThankGod there are people like Earth First!ers that are conscious about what we are doing to earth, that act and fight for the rights of earth and I mean for the rights of wildlife and forest reserves. For example, one of the Earth First!ers priority now is to save the Elliott Reinforest between others reserves.
Earth First!ers said: “It is not enough to ask politicians and corporations to destroyless wilderness. We need to preserve it all, to recreate lost habitats and reintroduce extirpated predators. We need to stop and reverse the poisoning of our air, water and soil, as well as the modification of life's genetic code. It is not enough to oppose the construction of new dams and developments. It is time to free our shackled rivers and restore the land.” And I agree with their statement.Those are great words and I like them even more because they are not only words and thoughts, but they are actually actions. Earth First!ers are just asking for us to cooperate on the cause, to take our part of responsibility and do something about it, because if we do there is a big chance of improvement and they would be able to stop acting like so aggressive, so to speak. I bet they are not ahundred percent satisfied with their actions, but if they got to do it, they would do it. If we only ask for less destruction, less contamination it would not be enough. People do not understand anything that is asked for good. They tend to understand when we do not ask, and just act. We are now in a position where there is a lot to be done if we want to retrieve even a bit of what mother earth...