A general statist culture pervades Iraq. The main factions see possession of the central government or state as an institution that can protect them from the dominance of the others. Anarchism would strike at the root of this problem and do much to alleviate it. It wouldn’t be enough though. There are other destructive cultural trends at work in Iraq. One is clearly fundamentalist Islam, and its basic anti-liberty premises. These premises are the absolute reliance on divine authority, and the aggressive violence required by its particular brand of Islamic law. An uprooting of this element is also necessary in a struggle for individual freedom in Iraq. This is only my particular left-libertarian market anarchist view though.

The practical means of uprooting statist and fundamentalist Islamic culture are bound to be peaceful ones. The firepower possessed by a U.S. backed regime is too immense to do armed battle with. The ISIS forces probably also possess considerable arms. They would not otherwise have made the progress they did. It would be advisable for freedom loving individuals in Iraq to begin a campaign of informing people of the possibilities of civil or peaceful criminal disobedience. The word criminal here pertains to violations of unjust laws and not criminality in the sense of violating the non-aggression principle. This civil or criminal disobedience is preferably aimed at both the rule of the Iraqi regime and ISIS militants. Both are authoritarian forces bent on the imposition of laws requiring the aggressive use of force.

A movement for the rights of all Iraqis could begin with peaceful disobedience, but it may involve instances of individual or collective self-defense too. This is especially true with respect to the emergence of a liberated territory under statist assault. Violence is preferably not a first resort and is best avoided as much as possible though. Its defensive potential is only magnified by the participation of a sufficient number of others. This is why isolated acts of violence are likely to be ineffectual and potentially immoral due to this lack of effectiveness.

We left-libertarian market anarchists in the U.S. can do all we can to support Iraqi comrades in creating a free society.

Get on it! Liberty lovers.

Questa è una storia vera. Katiele sta combattendo per poter trattare gli attacchi di epilessia di sua figlia con il CBD (cannabidiolo), una sostanza estratta dalla marijuana e proibita in Brasile. Prendendo a pretesto la lotta alla droga, i burocrati dell’Anvisa (l’ente brasiliano che controlla la salute) hanno deciso che la marijuana non si può usare per usi medici.

Come spiega Katiele nel suo video (giustamente intitolato Illegale), nessun’altra medicina disponibile in Brasile può curare la malattia di sua figlia. Nessuna. Tranne il CBD. Ostacolo: Il governo brasiliano proibisce la marijuana tanto per svago quanto per uso medico. Cosa fare? “La disperazione nel vedere che tua figlia ha crisi giornaliere, ad ogni ora, è così grande che abbiamo deciso di affrontare la questione comunque, anche a costo di importare la medicina illegalmente, che è quello che abbiamo fatto,” dice.

Secondo lo stato, questa madre ha agito da criminale. Secondo chi ha un minimo di senso della giustizia, ha fatto la cosa giusta. Ci sono casi in cui le persone per bene sono costrette ad andare contro la legge, fino alla disobbedienza civile imprenditoriale. Se, andando contro la legge, non fai male a nessuno o addirittura porti benefici, generando valore, questo di per sé dimostra che la legge in questione impedisce il benessere della società generato attraverso la libera produzione, lo scambio e l’associazione. Questo è ancora più significativo quando il valore generato è la salute di una bambina epilettica.

Il cinque aprile, Katiele e sua figlia hanno conseguito una vittoria giudiziaria. Con una decisione storica, la corte costituzionale di Brasilia ha stabilito che l’Anvisa deve fornire alla famiglia il CBD necessario al trattamento della malattia.

Purtroppo non finisce qui. L’ente può ancora ricorrere in appello. Il divieto all’uso medico della marijuana in Brasile continua, e la guerra alla droga, con tutte le sue conseguenze sciagurate, va avanti. A quanto pare, in questo paese bisogna fare ricorso contro lo stato se si vuole avere la possibilità di curare un male perfettamente evitabile e curabile. E tutto perché qualche burocrate ha deciso che la marijuana è un male.

Posso immaginare la sofferenza di questa madre. Mia sorella soffriva di epilessia dalla nascita. Sarebbe stato triste vederla soffrire senza cure, con crisi frequenti, solo perché c’era qualcuno che le impediva l’accesso ai farmaci.

Nota: La questione non è l’assenza di cure. Non è che la madre non ha i soldi e i mezzi per procurarsi le medicine. E anche se non avesse avuto soldi, avrebbe potuto sperare ancora: con le donazioni da parte di istituzioni filantropiche, ad esempio. Il problema è che lo stato si mette in mezzo tra lei e l’accesso legale alla cura.

In un articolo scritto per Center for a Stateless Society, Marja Erwin ha sollevato la questione di come una società libera, anche una anarchica, potrebbe affrontare il problema dei disabili, e se lo “scambio, di per sé, include pienamente le persone disabili”. Le società basate sullo stato negano sistematicamente l’accesso a medicinali e cure con pretesti paternalistici, talvolta diventando l’ostacolo principale, imponendo barriere poste all’innovazione medica e incrementando i costi delle cure.

Cercare di ridurre la sofferenza di qualcuno non dovrebbe essere un atto illegale. Al contrario, illegale dovrebbe essere lo stato che condanna la figlia di Katiele alla sofferenza perpetua. Illegale dovrebbe essere l’esistenza stessa dello stato, i cui atti ricordano l’iscrizione sulla porta dell’inferno dantesco: “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.”

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

These bills make an Orwellian use of terms like freedom. The ability to exclude people for irrational and arbitrary reasons is not an instance of liberty. Libertarians will earn the wrath of decent LGBT people everywhere without offering a solution other than state force to the problem of discrimination. We have a chance to show that our individualist principles apply to persecuted minorities as much as non-minorities. It’s not something to botch.

Thomas L. Knapp responded with:

Not sure what you mean by “exclude.”

If I don’t want to bake a cake for you, it doesn’t matter what my reasons are. You don’t own me. I own me. I get to decide whether or not I bake a cake for you — and that decision IS an instance of liberty.

Knapp and I don’t disagree about the importance of personal freedom. I tend not to couch it in terms of ownership, but I understand the gist of it. I do however disagree with him on this one. Power is still being exercised when you deny someone a service for irrational bigoted reasons. It’s not a form of power based on physical violence, but it still counts as such. It represents social ostracism and economic reward/punishment. The latter involves the control of economic resources and selective distribution of them to effect changes in the character or behavior of another. Does this mean we should combat it with physical force? Not at all. There is still the principle of proportionality to consider. Non-violent controlling behavior is ethically met with non-violent means. Of course, if people violently assault peaceful sit in protesters they are entitled to use violence in self-defense.

Another point I made worth revisiting was:

What about the issues of private property rights and trespass? One way to approach that question is through contextual or dialectical libertarian methodology. Private property rights are contextual and relate to occupancy or use. They are one value among others to consider in assessing the morality of an action. In the context of bigots irrationally excluding people from spaces otherwise open to the public, the value of private property rights is trumped by the need for social inclusion.

Why does one have to choose between these two particular values? The sit-iners are not engaged in any aggressively violent actions, so they aren’t violating libertarian principle. As far as private property rights go, there isn’t any violent destruction of property involved. Social inclusion can be fought for through non-violent social activism. The practicality of which was shown by the Civil Rights Movement. In other words: these values are not mutually exclusive. They both serve as supports for genuine freedom.

If someone did destroy property during the course of a sit-down protest, we could still show sympathy and forgive them. This is dictated by the context of their actions. We could even socially pressure the property owner to do the same. A court could refuse to hear a restitution claim. It would be cruel to target the racially oppressed for prosecution in this context.

One final thing is left to address. Does this mean that all uses of coercion to defend property are unjust? Not at all. If a criminal gang tries to take your food, it’s perfectly acceptable for you to use force to defend it. This is due to the rationality of the action. As Ayn Rand could tell you, ethics and rationality run together. Let us work to make ethical rationality a reality.

That is a true story. Katiele struggles to treat her daughter’s epilepsy with CBD (Cannabidiol), a substance derived from marijuana and forbidden in Brazil. As part of the Brazilian war on drugs, Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) bureaucrats have decided that the medical use of marijuana is impermissible inside the country.

As Katiele explains in her video (fittingly titled Illegal), no other medicine available in Brazil can control her daughter’s disease. None. Nevertheless, she found out that CBD is an effective alternative. The obstacle: The Brazilian government forbids the recreational as well as medicinal use of marijuana. What should she do, then? “The despair of having your daughter seizing every day, every time, is so huge that we decided to deal with it no matter what it took, even if we had to bring the medicine in illegally, and that’s what we did,” she said.

According to the state, this mother acted as a criminal. For anyone with a minimal sense of justice, she did the right thing. There are times when the only alternative for decent people is to break the law, including through entrepreneurial civil disobedience. If you, in breaking the law, do not hurt anyone and even benefits people, generating value, that by itself shows that the law in question obstructs society’s well-being generated through free production, exchange and association. That is even more salient when the value generated is the health of a epileptic kid.

On April 5, Katiele and her daughter had a judicial victory. In an historic decision, the federal justice in Brasilia determined that Anvisa should provide the family with CBD for the administration of treatment.

This is not the end, however. The agency can still appeal, the ban on medical marijuana continues in Brazil and the war on drugs, with all its dire consequences, goes on. Apparently, in this country, you have to sue the state to be able to get a permit to prevent such a very avoidable and treatable condition, just because some bureaucrat decided at some point that marijuana is evil.

I can imagine how this mother has suffered. My own sister had a birth condition and suffered from epilepsy. It would have been sad to see her going untreated and having constant seizures because there is someone blocking access to medicine.

Note: The point is not that there is no treatment. It is not that the mother does not have the money and the means to get hold of the medicine. If she did not have money, there would still be hope: Donations or philanthropic institutions, for example. The problem is that the state stands between the mother and legal access to treatment.

In an article for the Center for a Stateless Society, Marja Erwin brought up the question of how a free society, even an anarchist one, would deal with disability, and whether “exchange, on its own, fully includes those of us with disabilities.” Statist societies  have systematically denied the access to medicine or treatments on paternalistic grounds and are at times the largest hindrance to health care, either due to hurdles to medical innovations or due to the increased costs of treatment.

Trying to minimize someone’s agony should not be against the law. What should be against the law, however, is the nanny state’s condemnation of Katiele’s daughter to perpetual suffering. What should be against the law is the existence of such an institution as the state, whose acts within its borders remind us of the inscription on the door of Dante Alighieri’s hell: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Translated from Portuguese into English by Erick Vasconcelos.

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, Una madre contra una niñera abusiva.
• Portuguese, A mãe contra a babá abusiva.
• Italian, Una Madre Contro una Balia Oltraggiosa.

On the early summer morning of July 28, 2012, Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, the Oak Ridge Three, hiked down a wooded ridge to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. At the complex the hikers cut their way through three fences using bolt cutters, stealthily moved past guard dogs and then made their way past a sign noting that trespassers could be met with deadly force.

Inside the compound they made their way to a facility charged with processing much of the nation’s weapons grade uranium (enough to manufacture 10,000 nuclear bombs) and then splashed human blood on the building. The three spent over two hours within the compound, painting biblical slogans of peace around the facility. No one had any clue; it would be hours until the Oak Ridge Three were in custody.

Rice, an 84-year-old nun, and fellow peace activists Boertje-Obed and Walli have all been sentenced to prison for their actions. This case has garnered a lot of attention. The United States congress has held special hearings over the protest because it raised a number of questions about how the United States government manages nuclear weapons and high-grade materials. Furthermore, the activists illuminated how poorly private security corporations protect high-grade sites such as nuclear power plants.

The protest has also given rise to a strong showing of solidarity among fellow peace activists, the no nukes movement and other sympathetic supporters. The three have received thousands of letters of support from around the world – including the Union of Concerned Scientists.

On February 18th, Rice was sentenced to 35 months behind bars. Her comrades, Greg Boertje-Obed and Walli both received a sentence of 62 months.

Knoxville, Tennessee criminal defense attorney Chris Irwin represented the activist Michael Walli in the courtroom. Chris is a well-known criminal defense lawyer in the city – he is also a well-known, respected vocal political activist, community organizer and anarchist. When not in the courtroom, Chris can usually be found in the Appalachian coalfields – advocating the region move beyond coal. He has been taking the Tennessee Valley Authority and coal companies to task throughout the region for decades.

I first met Chris in the fall of 2010 when I started volunteering with the local environmental group United Mountain Defense. It has been rather enjoyable doing field work in the Cumberland mountains while talking politics with the enthusiastic activist attorney over the years.

When I heard that Chris was representing Michael Walli I was not surprised at all. The trial has been months in the making and I have stayed in contact with Chris throughout the proceedings – hoping for an interview the moment he could make information available to the public. On February 21st, a spring like day in the Tennessee valley, I got the interview. I sat down with the bearded attorney over a chocolate stout and barley wine outside of Suttree’s high gravity beer tavern in downtown Knoxville.

Our conversation (audio link here) explores the case, the defendant’s faith and the prison industrial complex. Chris notes how he managed the case as a lawyer and an anarchist. We also get insight as to who the Oak Ridge Three are – how their Christianity fueled their protest, about how they feel the legal system holds no power over them and how they have faith in a higher court. We also learn about their lives and how their beliefs inspire many inside and outside the courtroom. Furthermore, Chris and I discuss anarchism, state power and self governance – one cannot help but imagine the possibility of a peaceful, more secure, libertarian alternative to the nation-state: The stateless society.

Grant: When you first heard about the details of this case and knew you were going to be on it, as a lawyer, what went through your mind?

Chris: You mean my first legal opinion?

Grant: Yeah.

Chris: This is Bullshit. That’s my legal terminology. This is bullshit.

An 82-year-old nun got into the heart of the American nuclear arms production complex and I am having to represent this nun? What the Hell are these people [state officials] thinking?

… I knew people that worked there [Y-12 Nuclear Facility] and we had always been told for decades, “look – whether you believe these are mobile death camps or you think that we need them for our national defense, they are secure. This is the Fort Knox of security.” In a couple of hours everyone around here found out that was a fucking lie. We have been lied to. We were lied to by the state. There is even a joke, “What does Y-12 and the Tennessee defensive line have in common? Neither can keep an 82-year-old nun from penetrating their defenses.”

But this is un-arguably one of the most deadly plants or areas, not only on Earth, but in the history of the planet. There has probably never been anyplace more deadly and it was just mind boggingly crazy. Not only that they [the Oak Ridge Three] were able to do it, but that they brought the full force of the state against this nun and not a single person went to jail who accepted millions to secure this area.

And I know why! It’s because in World War II they had over 1,000 armed soldiers on that facility – just to secure it. They believed that’s what was necessary. They had maybe three [security guards] active during all of this. And it is because … private corporations who are supposed to be quote, “handling the security” [at Y-12] it’s about the bottom line. It’s cheaper to have cameras that don’t work, motion detectors that are ignored and fences than it is boots on the ground. Boots on the ground you have to pay for health insurance, pensions, salaries, and for a private corporation the tendency is always going to be to cut cost, cut corners, make it as cheap as possible.

…The other thing that came across my mind is that it’s dangerous to tell the emperor that he has no clothes. You know? They pointed out that the emperor has no clothes and that was the result.

Grant: You are also an open anarchist, I don’t know how long you have been an anarchist, but –

Chris: … Since I was eight.

Grant: Since you were eight? OK – so, since you were eight years old you have been an anarchist. So then as an anarchist when you heard about this what ran through your head?

Chris: My perspective as an anarchist is that whenever you centralize power special interests hijack it and the greatest atrocities in history are the product of centralized power. The very production of nuclear weapons would not be possible without large, centralized, nation-states. The resources it takes to make such stupid ass deadly weapons you can’t do on a community basis. I am familiar with how, whenever you centralize power – be it religious, philosophical, in the media – special interests are always going to hijack it. But, I had never seen this aspect of the danger of the large nation-state. Statistically you’re safer having Hannibal Lecter move in next door to you and salt away a few boy scouts than having a nation-state living next door.

The greatest serial killers in history are the nation states. I use the term anarchist … I believe Henry David Thoreau said, “That which governs best, governs least.” From my training as an attorney, I went in as a lawyer from law school and I had bought the party line in my 20’s, “fuck the founding fathers, fuck the constitution, they were a bunch of slave holding bastards – blah, blah, blah,” but then I took a class on constitutional law and I read. I read what Thomas Paine wrote and realized that not trusting large centralized governments, there’s nothing more American than that…

For me it’s further evidence that large centralized power not only leads to atrocities, but then the institutions sell out to the lowest bidder, Private corporations – and they do a terrible, terrible job. If those [the Oak Ridge Three] had actually been hostiles that had gone in – we might actually be living in a giant crater right now. Seriously, if you had a detonation there it could probably crack the Earth’s mantle and wipe out all life on the face of the planet. You’re dealing with an amazing amount of weaponry. But, the scientist there, or the people in charge are like, “Oh, there was no chance. They couldn’t have detonated. They couldn’t have gotten anything.” But, these are the same people who told us that the facility was secure and safe.

Grant: And an 82-year-old nun and her comrades were able to break in. That kind of gets into the next question I want to ask. So we have heard the story. They used bolt cutters, came in.

Chris: Which they didn’t need.

Grant: Which they didn’t need?

Chris: Well, they needed them on the inner fences but the outer fence was just shot full of holes.

Grant: Oh, really?

Chris: A reporter went out and they [Y-12] didn’t even find where they had gotten in. They had gotten in [Y-12 officials] in the wrong location – they had to be told where this gap was. [Y-12 for months had the wrong location. The reporter found the correct one, then wrote about it.]

Grant: Oh, wow.

Chris: It had been tied back together with yarn.

Grant: So, I guess that is it – is there anything about the action that they [the Oak Ridge Three] did that we don’t know about? That wasn’t reported in the media so far or that we know the details of?

Chris: The media didn’t report it at all. They [the Oak Ridge Three] had a picnic. They had a bloody damn picnic. They got in, they had time to eat bread, they had time to sing, they had time to spray biblical graffiti on the side of the wall and then they got bored. Finally, they basically walked up to this one security guard that was on his cell phone in his SUV and he then realized what was going on.

Grant: They walked up to a security guard?

Chris: Well he was there, he pulled up and they walked up to him and immediately began singing.

Grant: Oh my God!

Chris: If you really research it you can kind of get the idea of what happened. It’s just so fucking shocking and my favorite quote was when it was pointed out how fucked up that fence was on the outer perimeter, the security at Y-12 said: “Oh that’s not really a fence,” and quote, “We consider it a border marker.” The truth of it is, is that it’s a fence. It’s supposed to be a fence. It looks like a fence and it is in terrible condition – it’s shot full of holes.

What I hate to say as an environmentalist is what they need to do is – they have all these trees that give perfect cover all the way to the top of the hill – they need to clear-cut those. They need to have a clear line of sight to the top. But they’re not taking the security there seriously, they’re still not.

Grant: How did these three come together? How did they know each other? What was their planning strategy? Did it go according to plan? Was this easier than they thought? How did the whole thing come together to begin with?

Chris: Well, they’re still my clients and I still owe them an obligation of protecting them.

Grant: Okay.

Chris: And not disclosing too much because some of this could go get appealed. What I can say is what’s in the public record. They’re a member of a group called “Plowshare.”

Grant: Okay.

Chris: [Plowshare] engages in direct action all across the world. I am not a Christian scholar but I believe it comes from a quote in Isaiah, “They shall turn spears into pruning hooks and swords into plowshares.” They [the Oak Ridge Three] have this crazy idea that “thou shall not kill.”

Tolstoy had the same thing – if you want to look at an anarchist it would be along the same lines. Tolstoy became an anarchist through his Christianity. He believed “thou shall not kill” was something you cannot compromise. So, as such, you can have nothing to do with governments – all governments kill. He didn’t like the term anarchist, but he was. And they [the Oak Ridge Three] are kind of similar.

[The Oak Ridge Three] believe, not only that they should read the gospels of Jesus, but they should act the gospels. Their basis is really their Christianity but they are also influenced by Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau and other classic non-violent, direct actionists.

Grant: Are they anarchists? The Oak Ridge Three?

Chris: No, I wouldn’t know how to categorize them. It is interesting the backgrounds. Many people don’t realize Mr. Walli served two tours in Vietnam and was [a]decorated vet. He was on the Cambodian border twice. Once during Kent State, where he first saw people die, at least 50 people die. He knew first hand the results of the state and warfare…

It’s three different individuals as well, but in terms of militarization and the rhetoric that comes out of their mouths is ten times more militant than nine out of ten of the kids with an A sticker and patches that they wear around… I don’t know though, I would have to ask.

Grant: Okay, cool. So why did they do it? Was it to call attention to nuclear arms? Was it to call attention to war in general?

Chris: Both, and again, they believe thou shall not kill is something you can’t compromise on. [The Oak Ridge Three] view, those [nuclear weapons], basically, as mobile death camps. In World War II they brought the people to camps and in some weird twisted obscenity of consumer convenience culture, now we have figured out how to bring the death camps to the people. And they [the Oak Ridge Three] believe in a life dedicated to service – they can’t do that anymore.

They believe they’re Christians in the truest sense of the word… I just read the gospels for the first time… I came at it as an anarchist and as an organizer. I realized a couple of things. The reason Jesus got assassinated was … it looked like he was putting together a private army in the desert. I mean, most of his miracles revolve around logistics – water into wine. My favorite one is when had to feed all these people and they’re coming into a town. He sent two of his boys in and said “look, find the second guy that comes from the well in the town and tell him look, we’re gonna have our private army come into your town. We would like a room on the second floor and food waiting for us.” So, of course, what do you do when a private army is coming into your town? Sure enough, on the second floor, there’s food and they’re like, “This is a f’in miracle.”

… Jesus was an organizer first and foremost and he was becoming a threat to the status quo – to the rabbis. So they used the Roman military to take him out because they knew that the religious establishment couldn’t do it.

I think he gets a bad rap, just because of how he has been misused. I think if Jesus was around today, on the streets, well, he would probably be on death row or in the prison pretty quickly. They [the Oak Ridge Three] would be with him. They have seen through all the bull shit and the stuff that has accumulated…

I think that those three are closer to being true Christians than the pope…

Grant: Cool. So again, a lot of planning had to go into this obviously. You don’t just do an action like this. So, why did they pick when they did it? Why did they go that day?

Chris: I used to know… They had a reason… It had something to do with the date or time, but it didn’t come up in trial… So I don’t remember.

Grant: Okay, cool. In custody, how were they treated?

Chris: Sister Rice is pissed off! They all got a good look at the industrial prison complex and she dedicated about half her allocution during sentencing [she went on for about an hour and a half and about half of that was about prison] about the prison industrial complex. About the private prison systems – about how she was glad about how she had gotten a PhD in prisons. That the prisons were overcrowded, packed with non-violent offenders.

… They were in Blount County too, a cess pool jail really- overcrowded, sticky floors. Federal custody is typically better than state- more resources better jails and stuff. They spent some of their time in Ocilla, Georgia and that’s better conditions, you know, as far as being an animal stuck in a cage for a truly non-non violent offense.

Characterize it as the prison industrial complex- they’re just the slave ships of our century, but we don’t have a corresponding abolitionist movement that we had during the slave periods. Their [the Oak Ridge Three] perspective is more educated than, again, as most anarchist and their rhetoric is more radical. They really, especially sister Rice, … hate the sheer waste and destructive impact of the prison industrial complex. She educated the judge and everyone in the courtroom.

Here is a woman whose issue is Y-12 and nuclear weapons, she saw wrong while she was in jail, and dedicated half of what she was saying so the media and others would hear whats also going on in the prisons.

This [protest] wasn’t just a single act- this is just overall part of a life service and radicalism. They’re consistent. It shows that it is more a broad philosophy than just a single shot activist that got a good idea one night. Their philosophy shows, and how they treat injustice across the board – not simply money robbed from the poor through militarism, but also whats happening in prisons.

Michael Wallis serves food to the homeless, helps out soup kitchens, integrating former prisoners back into society. I mean their whole lives are dedicated, every aspect, to service to this philosophy. It was reflected in their outlook and how they worked and advocated for people while in custody.

You read Alexander Berkman’s  autobiography? Everyone’s read Emma Goldman’s autobiography but they don’t realize hers kind of started where his starts. She got to have this cool life traveling around the country and speaking and all this stuff. They put him in the tombs for 22 years and tried to kill him. He continued his life to service and was just as radical and militant as she was while he was in this Hell hole catacombs defending other prisoners, refusing to rat, earning respect … They’re [the Oak Ridge Three] like rocks. They don’t bend, they don’t fold- they maintain consistency. These people have that same kind of classical anarchist consistency.

Grant: How about in the courtroom itself? How were they portrayed by the prosecution? As their defense attorney how did you try to combat that? Were these people smeared as people who advocate violence or anything like that?

Chris: No, that wouldn’t have floated at all. The prosecutor did his job. I mean he acknowledged he was Catholic too and this is a Catholic nun that he is putting away. He acknowledged that they were non-violent. He tried to focus that they were misdirected, misguided and then focused on the elements of the offense – did they have an intent to interfere with the national security of the United States? Did they damage or contaminate? He focused on the elements and used that to prove his case.

And then they [the Oak Ridge Three] didn’t deny for a second what they did. Hell, while they were out on bond they did interviews about what they did. They did it on television, they did it on radio – so he didn’t really need to demonize them. Theodore [the prosecutor], he is conflicted, but he did his job.

Grant: Cool. So that is it then. So, why are they asking for the max penalty? Or at least miss Rice is.

Chris: Well, the maximum is 30 years.

Grant: Right, well, she is asking for life in prison – why make that request?

Chris: Because they’re willing to be martyrs for their cause. They believe it doesn’t matter. They’re not in prison, you know? They are just in a cell that humans put them in.

Propaganda by the deed. She [Rice] meant it. She was like, ” You can’t .”… She is a being of light. They are uncompromising on principle and philosophy and that is really rare in this society. That’s their position.

They wanted to communicate and they saw also that people who engage in non-violent civil disobedience were watching what was happening. They were saying, “No, we’re not going to back down – we are principled human beings and the state, all they can do is take our lives. That’s all you’ve got – the worst you can do is take our lives and incarcerate these bodies we have.” For those who are truly embraced in the philosophy that’s no threat at all. It was no threat to her. She didn’t care. She was like, “Alright, I’m what, 85 now?”  She’s like, “Yeah, put me away for life.”

Ten years sentence is probably life.

All three did not repent an ounce of what they did.

Grant: Right.

Chris: Made me proud to represent them.

Grant: Yea, I guess that is another question about the [cross talk] that might be about my final question. I mean, they weren’t repentant at all- which is great.

Chris: They said they would do it again if they released them.

Grant: So how was that? How was that reaction? Sitting from the outside, when a judge who just gives a sentence and then to have somebody say, you know, “That’s not enough,” or, “I’ll go do it again.” How does something like that go over in a court system like that? What was the reaction in the courtroom?

Chris: Well, I can tell you what my reaction is…

After I had argued for about two hours and then for my clients to basically be like, “All you can do, judge, is put us away for the rest of our lives. You have no power here. We consider ourselves to have a higher ruling from a higher court” – made me sweat blood a little bit. As an attorney my job is to get them the least amount of time possible and cost them as little money as possible – as an activist, even then, it was outside of everybody’s range of experience.

The legal system is a well oiled, life gobbling machine and having somebody say, “You got no power – put us away, give us more time” takes it out of the realm of that machine. They don’t know how to deal with it. It played into the deterrence argument.

Grant: What is that? Deterrence?

Chris: That’s one of the seven factors your suppose to look at in sentencing, is deterrence. And I wish now I had argued during, “There is no deterrence, here, your honor, you’re not going to deter them. We shouldn’t even be talking about that.” …

Grant: Whats this deterrence again? What exactly is that?

Chris: Keep other activists and keep them [the defendants] from doing it again.

Grant: Okay.

Chris: He kind of dumped the keep them from doing it again and just used it to show other activists not to do this… You never see that.

You have gangsta’s that talk about it. But, you know, I’ve represented Bloods, vice lords, Crips, MS-13’s, crack dealers, meth addicts, prostitution’s, shooters- you know, across the board and they talk: “Fuck the police” and blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day most of them cooperate. They are all humble and are like “please, your honor” – they don’t want to be in these Hell holes.

It’s interesting to see a octogenarian, you know, show more true gangsta than your average Blood or Crip.

It was inspiring. It was definitely inspiring. I’m gonna get the transcript for the whole trial eventually and just to read it again…

Grant: So, I’ll ask you a final wrap up question but I guess the next few are on a more personal note – how did you come about the legal profession? So as an anarchist what led you into the legal profession and then from there, criminal defense? I kind of imagine that they [cross talk]

Chris: Well I got arrested so many times from civil disobedience that I had to sit through my court proceedings and usually they put us at the end of the docket. So I had to sit through everyone else’s court proceedings… I sat through it all and I was like, “You know, I could do that.” I like to argue, and then, I realized too I’m a dinosaur. You know? I mean, active anarchist organizers that are my age? [I can count on one hand radicals that started when I did that are still organizing.] We have a higher turnover rate than McDonald’s in this business.

My wife and I at the time were in our late 20’s. We sat down and we wrote down every reason we saw our activist people checking out. Often times it just came down to that dumpster diving and couch surfing is okay in your 20’s and stuff, but eventually, people- its a human thing- want a little bit more security, want a little more comfort.

You know, the classical anarchists all had straight jobs. Emma Goldman was a nurse. Some made shoes, some attorneys- unless you were born rich Russian nobility, which I wasn’t. I lost my job I had on 9/11. I was cleaning the outside of sky scrapers and my wife wanted to stay here and I wanted to go back to school just to hide out for a while. I was all, “Well, I’ll just go to law school.”

And law school is really like reading the rule box of society, you know? It’s reading the cereal box. I wanted new tools too. I had exhausted all the tactics I used up until then. First I get access to people. Then I learned some funky stuff…

Also my job as a criminal defense attorney is to take as much money from corporations as possible and keep people out of prison for bull shit victimless crimes. I’m okay with that.

Thoreau said that most men led lives of quiet desperation. I had no idea until I interviewed my first 100 clients what a relative life of privilege I’d lead as an environmentalist anarchist. I had no idea the amount of rape, children sexual abuse and how many people are just doing drugs to try and kill that part of their brain that [remembered what] happened when they were kids. It was brutally disillusioning but I believe illusions interfere with an ability to lead a good life so I embraced that.

Also, defense attorneys, we’re the ones that tell the state, “You can’t go further.There is a line here you can’t go further than.” I like being on the front lines. I like being able to hear and see exactly where the state is encroaching…

Also I noticed, I stopped a strip mine for a year and half. I used to lock myself by my neck to bulldozers and gates and I’ve organized protests against strip mines and we’ve shut them down for an hour. Where, with just pushing paper back and forth, I shut down a strip mine for over a year- …

I came into the system with no illusions. When I talk to my clients I give them clearly the anarchist wrap. I am like, “Look, if you have any illusions that this is about justice fairness or rationality you need to get rid of that. This is about money and time. The state wants your ass and I am trying to save that for you.”

Whats pathetic is 98% of my clients go, “Ha, yeah, I knew that”…

… being in the guts of what is going on has radicalized me.

Photo Credit:

www.paxchristiusa.org – … Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA), and the speaking of truth by our three friends in the empire’s court was, for me, an infusion of hope!

These words are found in his lecture “Walking,” which he delivered numerous times, beginning in 1851. The connection between wildness and freedom is seen throughout Thoreau’s writing. To him, the good life required balancing the civilized and the wild, and his idea of nature informs his idea of liberty.

For Thoreau, the wild holds numerous individual and social benefits. It is a place where a person can discover and renew oneself. It is a place that allows for experimentation. It is a place that can bring radical regeneration or even a restructuring of society. Thoreau’s life in the Walden Woods, though he was somewhat isolated, was a kind of social experiment that he conducted on himself. Its goal was personal as well as social regeneration.

Thoreau’s views of wildness and freedom underlie his original and relevant libertarian philosophy. It is individualist and social. It is grounded in an understanding of nature and a desire to or figure out one’s place within it. Thoreau’s belief in acting on principles also gave him a practical attitude toward political violence and helped him make a persuasive case for peaceful revolution.

Nature

“Walking” begins,

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that. [1]

With nature there is an absolute freedom, which is not the same as a freedom merely civil. It is of vital importance to retain an element of wildness.

I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated; part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest…

Balancing culture and wild was seen early in Thoreau’s life. He was born on July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. As a boy he excelled in academics as well as wandering. In Walden he describes hunting and fishing as important parts of his education. While he continued to fish, he began to think of hunting as something good for boys so long as they outgrew it.[2] Thoreau graduated from Harvard in 1837. He soon began discussing philosophy among the Transcendentalists, who were centered in Concord around Ralph Waldo Emerson. He also explored nature, often with his brother John until John’s death in 1842.

For Thoreau, the wild is source of vigor and strength. He says “in Wildness is the preservation of the world” and “from the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.” [3]

Nature was something to study and be inspired by, but most importantly to experience. The essay is called “Walking” after all.

In Walden, Thoreau describes nature as satisfying a need for infinite discovery.

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor…
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. [4]

Walden Life

Thoreau chose a natural setting for his life at Walden Pond. This was to be an experiment and a source of regeneration.

In late March of 1845 he began building a cabin near the shore of Walden pond, just outside Concord. He moved into the cabin on July 4 and would live there for about two years and two months.

The experimental purpose of this living situation becomes clear in first chapter of Walden, titled “Economy,” where Thoreau described his living expenses and needs. The second chapter “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” gives a fairly direct answer.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. [5]

He wants to live deliberately – to be less carried away by the affairs of others and follow his own way, partly so he can have a quiet space to write. He wants to deal with the essential facts of life – a process of discovery. He wants to learn – to see what he will find living closer to nature. And he wants to live – to not only know what life was about but to experience it.

Thoreau intends to cut away the details to get to the real substance of life, and if “it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”

This brings up Emerson’s idea of having an “original relation to the universe.” Thoreau did not try to go back to primitive origins, but tried to take the fruits of civilization to arrange them in an original way, to make an original combination. He got Emerson’s permission to use part of his land, bought scrapwood and secondhand windows, cut pines with a borrowed ax, built himself a cabin, and planted two and a half acres, mostly with beans. This was not an experiment in primitive living, but an experimental setup to improve modern living.

As Gandhi said, “Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practise in himself.” [6]

Simplicity

Simplicity is important for Thoreau. It helps him discover the essential facts of life and maintain control of his life to enable space for discovery.

Simplicity is at the heart of the social dimension of the Walden project. In Walden, Thoreau denounces luxury and excess – perhaps excessively so, but it is instructive. An ambition to simplify balances the ambition for expansion and accumulation.

In the conclusion of Walden, he writes,

I leaned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours…

In proportion as one simplifies his life, “the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” [7]

Simplicity had a political dimension for Thoreau. “Civil Disobedience” contains a passage describing how it is easier to live a principled life when one has less property for the government to steal. But Thoreau goes further.

But the rich man — not to make any invidious comparison — is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the “means” are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor. [8]

In Walden, he describes how he didn’t lock his door, but left his cabin open to visitors. Despite being outdoors often he only ever missed one thing: a small volume of Homer’s writing.

I am convinced that if all men were to live as simply as I did then, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough. [9]

A lot hinges on the phase “as I did then,” since he then lived in experimental circumstances.

Near the beginning of the book he cautions,

I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.[10]

Thoreau gains a sense of liberation and truth from his life in the woods. It was part of his self-emancipation from the quiet desperation of conformity and overwork. It was also an opportunity to discover his sense of self as well his as connections with the rest of the world, an inspiring prospect.

Individualist and Social

For most of Thoreau’s life, he lived with other people, either with his family at Emerson’s home. During his 26 months at Walden he lived alone, but he often met with other people.

Walden notes that Thoreau’s cabin was about a mile and a half south of Concord. This was not a major trek for a proud saunterer like Thoreau, who remarked that “every day or two” he strolled to the village.[11] Walden also recounts many visitors to the woods: woodchoppers, icecutters, hunters, escaped slaves, and good friends.

Thoreau’s cabin was perfectly placed on the fringes of civilization where culture and nature met. He was close enough to participate in the social life of nearby towns but far enough away to study nature and to be considered odd by many contemporaries.

Many people seem to not understand this about Walden. They have an idea of an isolated, possibly misanthropic hermit who would disapprove of anyone who came near his secluded home. And if they find out that he did not live in the middle of nowhere, which he never claimed to, then he gets branded a big phony. Sometimes a big deal is made of him having meals with his family in Concord, but considering Thoreau’s contributions to the family pencil-making business over his lifetime, his obvious skill at craftsmanship, and the meals that he served visitors at Walden, his alleged mooching appears to actually be a sign of social involvement and reciprocity.

Thoreau was a social individualist who hoped that his discoveries could be applied by others who wished to live better lives. While he did want to have some quiet writing space at Walden, he was not seeking to cut off society but to find ways to improve it. The nearby wild afforded him the liberty and the clarity of vision to see life in a new way.

Outrage

Thoreau expresses outrage against injustice as crime against humanity and an offense against nature.

He delivered an address called “Slavery in Massachusetts” at an anti-slavery celebration in Massachusetts on July 4, 1854, shortly after a fugitive slave named Anthony Burns was convicted in Boston.

Again it happens that the Boston Court-House is full of armed men, holding prisoner and trying a MAN, to find out if he is not really a SLAVE. Does any one think that justice or God awaits Mr. Loring’s decision? For him to sit there deciding still, when this question is already decided from eternity to eternity, and the unlettered slave himself and the multitude around have long since heard and assented to the decision, is simply to make himself ridiculous. We may be tempted to ask from whom he received his commission, and who he is that received it; what novel statutes he obeys, and what precedents are to him of authority. Such an arbiter’s very existence is an impertinence. We do not ask him to make up his mind, but to make up his pack. [12]

It is not surprising that Thoreau would be outraged by the maintenance of slavery. He was a man of principle who had personally experienced the humanity of slaves in the course of his activities in the Underground Railroad. But his understanding of nature underlies the way in which he expresses outrage. The whole trial is an absurdity. The question of whether the accused is a man or a slave has already been decided. The unlettered slave has assented to the decision, and the judge looks ridiculous when he refuses to assent to it. Later in the address Thoreau says that it would make as much sense for the government to declare a man a sausage as it would to declare him a slave.

He does not spare the State of Massachusetts from its responsibility for this outrage.

Massachusetts sat waiting Mr. Loring’s decision, as if it could in any way affect her own criminality. Her crime, the most conspicuous and fatal crime of all, was permitting him to be the umpire in such a case. It was really the trial of Massachusetts. Every moment that she hesitated to set this man free — every moment that she now hesitates to atone for her crime, she is convicted.

Thoreau is so outraged that even his walks are affected.

“The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.”

Thoreau cannot help but plot murder against the state. But being Thoreau, he cheers up when he sees a certain flower, and he celebrates the white water lily as a symbol of purity and sweetness that can rise from slime and muck.

Conscience

Thoreau’s political views are rooted in conscience, something that resides in the individual but is often concerned with the treatment of others. “Civil Disobedience,” his most influential political work, is thoroughly individualist and grounded in social responsibility and justice.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? [13]

Once again, Thoreau is resting his case on an appeal to nature: each person has a conscience and there is no reason for him to disregard it and let the legislator decide things instead. He is not saying that it is “human nature” to act a certain way, but he is encouraging his audience to choose to embrace and exercise a characteristic that is within their nature.

But what to do then?

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.

The only time Thoreau met with the government face to face was when it taxed him.

My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with — for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel — and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action?

Individuals acting on their consciences is at the heart of Thoreau’s idea of peaceful revolution.

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.

Peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. This is direct action which Thoreau understood through practice. “Civil Disobedience” was written about Thoreau’s own experience refusing to pay a poll tax that he saw as supporting slavery and an aggressive war to expand slavery into territory captured from Mexico. He was imprisoned for a day until someone else, probably a relative, paid the tax.

But Civil Disobedience continues.

But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.

Thoreau’s willingness to accept violence is consistent with his later impassioned defense of John Brown’s attempted insurrection in 1859.

I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman’s billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment!” [14]

Thoreau defended Brown’s raid at a time when many – including many abolitionists – considered Brown too extreme, even insane, and disassociated from him. Thoreau compared Brown’s execution to Christ’s martyrdom. Revolutionary War heroes Ethan Allen and John Stark were less impressive, for they “could bravely face their country’s foes,” but Brown “had the courage to face his country herself, when she was in the wrong.”

It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him… I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave.

Even Walden is not free from references to violence, though they may be wrapped in humor.

As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. [15]

This is the kind of degradation that the tonic of nature is supposed to prevent. It is easier to lose one’s freedom when there is no wildness to develop in.

Thoreau’s references to manhood and manliness should not pass without notice. There has to be good feminist analyses of Thoreau’s writing, but it does not come up often. One has to wonder how women fit into Thoreau’s worldview, especially since his mother and sisters were involved in the Underground Railroad.[16] The answers are probably found within his voluminous journals. He does remark in “Walking” that, “How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand it I do not know.”[17] Presumably, women, like men, should follow their own way and not the ways of their fathers, mothers, or neighbors, as Thoreau counseled in Walden.

Thoreau does show a practical attitude toward violence: violence is undesirable but not always evil. One of his most enduring contributions to political thought is his advocacy of a peaceful revolution and description of a means to carry it out: the citizen refuses allegiance, and the officer resigns his office. Thoreau was certainly not the first philosopher to advocate for a peaceful revolution through withdrawing consent, but he did make the idea accessible to an English-speaking audience and strengthened it with concrete examples drawn from his personal experience.[18] Perhaps Thoreau’s practical attitude and explanation, rooted in his own experience, allowed him to make a more convincing case.

Politics

Thoreau discusses his political views most fully in Civil Disobedience, an 1849 essay originally titled “Resistance to Civil Government.”

He begins with a very libertarian statement.

I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. [19]

While Thoreau does not draw out a plan to prepare for government which governs not at all, his repeated appeals to conscience suggest that it requires a broad shift in principles. Experiencing the wild, of course, is an important part of individual and social improvement. After Thoreau is released from prison, he finds himself in a party of huckleberry pickers. Soon they are “in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.” [20]

Government was “an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone.” Yet it more often interfered with people and commerce, and the good things accomplished in America were due to the character of American society.

“But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.” [21]

Regardless of how immediately one would ask for no government, one can appreciate Thoreau’s practicality: having no government is a worthwhile thing to strive for, but in the meantime it would be nice if the government did not start wars, hunt down innocent people to haul them to slavery, and threaten to kill anyone who resisted.[22]

Yet Thoreau’s genuine radicalism can inspire libertarians, whether or not they be of the no-government variety. Resisting the poll tax was one example of his practice of direct action. Resisting slavery was a family activity for the Thoreaus, and Henry’s thorough knowledge of the region’s woods and his knack for navigation were probably quite valuable in guiding slaves northward.

In “Slavery in Massachusetts,” Thoreau criticized those who talked about distant and potential evils while ignoring nearby existing evils. He is dismayed that they talk about the possibility of Nebraska allowing slavery, yet did little to stop fugitive slaves being hauled back to slavery by Massachusetts militia and United States Marines.

He decries the hypocrisy of celebrating freedom won in the battle of Concord just after a man was taken back to slavery.

Three years ago, also, just a week after the authorities of Boston assembled to carry back a perfectly innocent man, and one whom they knew to be innocent, into slavery, the inhabitants of Concord caused the bells to be rung and the cannons to be fired, to celebrate their liberty — and the courage and love of liberty of their ancestors who fought at the bridge.

Thoreau encouraged his audience to not limit political action to the ballot.

The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning. [23]

Work

Thoreau’s view of freedom included liberation from excessive work.

In “Life Without Principle,” Thoreau condemns overwork and obsession with business.

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! [24]

Within a chapter of Walden focused on his own labors, Thoreau questions the factory system and dreads the conditions of workers.

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched.[25]

Walden also describes Thoreau advocating a simple life to an Irish immigrant farm worker nearby.

[I]n an hour or two, without labor, but as recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want for two days, or earn enough money to support me a week. If he and his family would live simply, they might all go a-huckleberrying in the summer for their amusement. [26]

Thoreau’s own labors were many and varied. He worked in the family pencil business, as a handyman, and as a surveyor. He seems to favor honest, quality work that the worker can enjoy with plenty of time for other pursuits. His defense of leisure time predates a number of labor leaders and social commentators. His ideas of useful, quality work and opposition toward the factory system could be connected with earlier sentiments popular among artisans resisting “proletarianization,” but in “Walking, Thoreau wonders about artisans who can sit at the workbench all day.

Land Question

How can one enjoy simple, independent living like Thoreau did at Walden when you have no land to plant your beans? Thoreau understood that the land he used was borrowed from a friend and did consider the question of land, but did not explore it in depth. In Walden he suggests that it is better to live in a box than be harassed by a landlord. [27]

“Walking” attacks the type of land enclosures that obstruct wandering.

At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only, — when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road; and walking over the surface of God’s earth, shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities then before the evil days come.[28]

Conclusion

On September 6, 1847, Thoreau left his cabin at Walden, and went back to living in Concord.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to life, and could not spare any more time for that one. [29]

Once he accomplished what he set out to do at Walden, Thoreau began on different paths of discovery and advocacy. He continued to live deliberately, taking frequent long walks, studying nature in increasing detail, and speaking against slavery, hypocrisy, and conformity. He began to study Native American culture in his later years and compiled many pages of notes on the subject. In late 1860 he caught bronchitis, which combined with his tuberculosis to seriously damage his health. Yet he continued to explore and examine nature. He died on May 6, 1862, leaving behind literary treasures for contemporaries and future generations.

Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were inspired by Civil Disobedience and respected the authenticity that Thoreau’s experience enabled him to bring to his writing. Thoreau’s life and advocacy for nature have earned him a fair claim to the title of “father of environmentalism” which some have bestowed upon him. Today the depth of Thoreau’s writing and actions counsel us to explore ourselves, to understand the world around us, and to live deliberate lives of freedom.

Notes

The above essay is adapted from notes for a presentation at the Alternatives Expo, delivered February 23, 2013 in Nashua, NH.

[1] Thoreau, Henry David, “Walking.” The Atlantic, June 1862. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1862/06/walking/304674/
Thoreau’s Walking – With Annotated Text. The Thoreau Reader. http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking.html

[2] Thoreau, Henry David, Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, ed. Jonathan Levin. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003. 192.

[3] Thoreau, “Walking.” http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking2.html

[4] Thoreau, Walden, 286.

[5] Thoreau, Walden, 85.

[6] Thoreau, Henry David, “Civil Disobedience.” The Thoreau Reader. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html

[7] Thoreau, Walden 291-292

[8] Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience.”  Part 2 of 3. The Thoreau Reader.
http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil2.html

[9] Thoreau, Walden, 158. Thoreau “was never molested by any person but those who represented the state.”

[10] Thoreau, Walden, 67.

[11] Thoreau, Walden, 81,154. In “Walking” Thoreau discusses the word “saunterer” and admires its possible etymologies.

[12] Thoreau’s Slavery in Massachusetts with Annotated Text. The Thoreau Reader. http://thoreau.eserver.org/slavery.html

[13] Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience.” http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html

[14] Thoreau, Henry David, “A Plea For Captain John Brown.” The Thoreau Reader. http://thoreau.eserver.org/plea.html

[15] Thoreau, Walden, 55.

[16] “Was Thoreau involved in the Underground Railroad?” The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau. About Thoreau: Frequently Asked Questions. http://thoreau.library.ucsb.edu/thoreau_faq.html

[17] Thoreau, “Walking.” http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking1.html

[18] Notably, Étienne de La Boétie wrote the Discourse of Voluntary Servitude in 16th Century France, though there are reasonable questions about the essay’s authorship. http://aaeblog.com/2008/08/14/who-wrote-the-discourse-on-voluntary-servitude/

[19] Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience.” Part 1 of 3. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html

[20] Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience.” Part 3 of 3. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil3.html

[21] Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience.” Part 1 of 3. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html

[22] An interesting question to explore would be to what extent Thoreau’s reading of Chinese philosophy influenced his choice of words in Civil Disobedience. A government which governs not at all sounds similar to Lao Tzu’s advice to rulers to let the people govern themselves as much as possible. Thoreau may have been familiar with Taoist writing.
See Tao Te Ching, Chapter 57 (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html#57) and David T.Y. Ch’en, “Thoreau and Taoism” (http://transcendentalism.tamu.edu/hdt-tao).

[23] Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts. The Thoreau Reader. http://thoreau.eserver.org/slavery.html

[24] Thoreau, Henry David, “Life Without Principle.” The Thoreau Reader. http://thoreau.eserver.org/life1.html

[25] Thoreau, Walden, 28.

[26] Thoreau, Walden, 187.

[27] Thoreau, Walden, 30.

[28] Thoreau, “Walking.” Part 1 of 3. http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking1.html
Note that Swedish custom contains an idea known as allemansrätten, that it is every man’s right to wander even on privately-owned land, within limitations meant to prevent disruptive or destructive behavior.

[29] Thoreau, Walden, 291.

Frédéric Bastiat famously stated in The Law that “when law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening. Both outcomes of this decision are deeply undesirable for the people of Arizona.

These types of dilemmas are very troubling, but history does provide some guidance. Examples abound with moral lawbreakers. Martin Luther King didn’t ask the permission of racists to challenge their convictions. Gandhi stood in defiance of the law to the British imperialists.  John Brown would not wait to see enslaved Africans liberated any longer and acted decisively. Lysander Spooner never groveled for state sanction to become a lawyer or to start the American Letter Mail Company.  Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of the travesty of the Mexican-American War, subsequently writing Civil Disobedience as a result. It was in his cell that he proclaimed, “under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”   Harriet Tubman reacted to the injustice of slavery and risked her life many times to free the enslaved from bondage. The Tea Partiers of the American Revolution did not wait for the law to catch up to their sense of moral indignation; they acted on their own consciences as a small fraction of the Boston community!

Recently, Bradley Manning bravely acted out against the murderous policies of the American state.  His and Wikileaks’ actions, though illegal like those of Daniel Ellsberg of a previous epoch, did a great deal to unearth the madness of the policies of the state and furthered justice.

We certainly do not judge well the “Good Germans” of World War II who were supposedly uninvolved in the Nazi terrors.  “Just following orders” is contrary to most Americans’ intuitive sense of justice. If one obeys a law because the guiding principle is just then morality and our community are well-served. People who behave in this manner do our communities a great service. However, if one obeys a law for no better reason than that it is law, all one is doing is respecting power, and disappointingly, not virtue.

American culture is many things, but it is definitively not about respect for unjust authority. The entire history and culture of this place echoes a profound respect (at the very least rhetorically) for freedom and justice under the law.  America has seen a strong tradition of individuals acting immediately as nullifiers to laws they deem unjust.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the thrust of Arizona’s immigration bill, SB1070, we should all agree that following laws merely because they are laws is a horribly low standard to set for our communities. I personally don’t want people who “just follow orders” as my neighbors. I want neighbors who boldly confront problems which prick their moral indignation and offend their sense of justice. Members of our community who are willing to act against their moral convictions and follow bad laws are not reliable members of a responsible community, and never could be.

Even if one does not agree with Luz Santiago’s anti-SB1070 stance, one should openly welcome her voice in a freethinking and inquisitive community and be glad that there are some who will bravely follow their moral convictions in the face of great opposition. One would be lucky to have such neighbors in any community.