Ed Abbey Speaks
"Audio Recording of Abbey/Loeffler": Author and Abbey compadre Jack Loeffler plays recording of, and comments on, Ed Abbey interview
Transcript
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(radio production) This is Jack Loeffler. In 1983, I interviewed my best friend, Edward Abbey, whose books have inspired millions of us to resist the military-industrial-political complex that threatens life on our planet. Ed was as clear a thinker as anyone I’ve ever know. It seems appropriate in this time when terrorism abounds on our planet, that Ed Abbey’s point of view be heard. The following is excerpted from the interview I conducted with Edward Abbey on January 1, 1983, just after we’d returned to his home, after a camping trip in the Superstition Mountains of southern Arizona.
Abbey: I consider myself an almost absolute egalitarian. I think that all human beings are essentially, in some essential way, equal deserve equal regard or consideration. Certainly everyone differs in ability: some people are bigger, stronger, some are smarter, some are more clever with their hands, others more clever with their brains. There’s almost an infinite variation in talent and ability and intelligence, among individual humans. But I think each of us except, perhaps, the most depraved, violently criminally insane generals and dictators each of us, in some essential way, are of equal value I would say, "in the eyes of God," except that I’m not a good Christian anymore. I think there’s some other basis for this kind of egalitarianism, just by virtue of being alive, living things. We deserve to be respected as individuals. And I’m saying that that respect for the value of each human being should be extended to each living thing on the planet, our fellow creatures, beginning with our pet dogs and cats and horses. Humans find it easy to love them. We should learn to love the wild animals, the mountain lions and the rattlesnakes and the coyotes and the buffalo and the elephants and so on. Developing that way, extend our ability to love to plant life. I think a tree, a shrub, deserves respect and sympathy as a living thing. And then I can go beyond that, to the rocks, to the air, to the water, because it’s all part of the whole. I think the conflict between ever-expanding industrialism in this country and the rest of the world on one side, and attempts to preserve a sane, decent, reasonable human and humane way of life on the other side, I think that conflict is going to become greater, more widespread, more intense in the decades to come. How it will end, I hesitate to say: one form of disaster or another, perhaps civil war, revolution, international war, maybe nuclear war, followed by famine and plague, the usual four horsemen of death. Or on the other hand, a kind of disaster which I would regard as equally unpleasant namely, a complete technological domination of the planet, of all life human life, animal life, plant life a complete rationalization of the planet Earth a kind of technological world in which humans would play the role merely of passive consumers and dependents, where objects are manipulated by objects, and everything has been forced to serve the needs of technology, the great machine. Two possible nightmares for the future.
But I can see a valley between those mountains of despair, a way between the horns of the dilemma, a way of common sense, intelligence, reason, love, reverence, simplicity, and birth control.
Loeffler: Ed, when it becomes apparent that we’re not gaining philosophically fast enough, in the wake of big business and political maneuvering, what steps do you think are justifiable in trying to turn the tide that seems to lead to literally a dead end, for not just our species, but the whole planet?
Abbey: I suppose if political means fail us, public organization and public pressure. If those don’t do what has to be done, then we will be driven to more extreme defensive measures in defending our Mother Earth. Here in the United States, I can see a lot more acts of civil disobedience beginning to occur as the bulldozers and the drilling rigs attempt to move into the wilderness and into the backcountry and the farmlands and seashores and other precious places. And if civil disobedience is not enough, I imagine there will be sabotage—violence against machinery, property. Those are pretty desperate measures. If that becomes widespread, it could be the battle’s already been lost. That might stimulate some sort of police state reaction, repression, a real military-industrial dictatorship in this country.
Personally, I feel, when all other means fail, as a last resort, we are morally justified—and not only justified, but morally obligated—to defend that which we love by whatever means are available—just as if my family, my wife or my children were attacked, I wouldn’t hesitate to use violence to defend them. By the same principal, if the land I love is being violated, raped, plundered, murdered, and all political means to save it have failed, I personally feel that sabotage is morally justifiable—at least, if it does any good, if it’ll help, if it’ll only help you to feel good. But that is, indeed, a pretty desperate situation. We haven’t reached that point yet in the United States, but we’re approaching it. I’m not too optimistic about the future.
Loeffler: Just for the record, I would hazard that some would call acts of physical sabotage, terrorism. Would you differentiate between terrorism and the form of sabotage that you spoke of?
Abbey: Sure. The distinction seems quite clear and simple to me. Sabotage is an act of force or violence against property or machinery, in which life is not endangered, or should not be. Terrorism, on the other hand, is violence against living things, human beings and other living things. Now, that kind of terrorism is generally practiced by governments against their own people, against their own citizens: the Soviets are committing terrorism against the people of Afghanistan right now, with limited success, I’m happy to hear. Our government committed great acts of terrorism against the people of Vietnam quite recently. That’s what terrorism means to me violence and the threat of violence against human beings and other forms of life which seems quite different, radically different, from sabotage, which is a much more limited tactic. I’d go so far as to say a bulldozer tearing up a hillside and ripping out trees for the purpose of a logging operation or strip mine is committing a kind of terrorism against life.
Loeffler: (narrating for radio program) This is a time when democracy in America is challenged by an administration that attained the White House through means regarded by many as blatantly illegal. The onus is on the people of our country to thwart the George W. Bush oligarchy, who are committed to turning habitat into money, and attaining absolute power. Lord Acton once said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration is as grim a gang of terrorists as the world has yet known. They lack the intelligence necessary to extrapolate the ramifications of their policies, which include initiating a war against Iraq. The billions of dollars they would spend terrorizing this nation, in order to assassinate Saddam Hussein, and purchase access to Iraqi oil would leave a legacy of misery and despair, for which we, the American people, would be remembered for the rest of our tenure on this planet.
Edward Abbey once wrote, "Society is like a stew. If you don’t keep it stirred up, you get a lot of scum on top." It’s time for the thinking people of our country to skim away the scum in our democracy. Call your congressman frequently to protest the policies of the Bush administration, actively demonstrate against the Bush oligarchy. Commit acts of creative civil disobedience. Function from as high a level of consciousness as you can attain, to rid our country of this terrible blight. We’re within a hair’s breadth of martial law, the death knell for democracy. And remember yet another of Ed Abbey’s apothems, and I quote, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." Thank you for listening. (applause)
Wegner: Thank you, Jack, and the gospel according to Ed. Amen.
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