Some Insight

[Guest guest]

This is a letter written by Chris McIntosh, he is a member of ALF and ELF, 23 years old.

he has pleaded guilty to one count of federal arson and sentenced in December to eight to ten years for a fire set at an empty McDonald's, which caused $5,000 in damage.

 

imprisioned in Sea Tac, for Arson

 

Sentencing Statement: Dec 16thRe: United States v. Christopher McIntosh(released to the Seattle media) The situation I was born into clearly represents the socio-economic imbalance in the United States. Today, I continue to feel reverberations, from my environment as a child, in my relationships, and in how I interact with others. I am not implying that my childhood experiences caused me to commit this arson, but that my life experience so far has been a source of deep resentment toward the system. The "civilization" that is set up to make a situation, like the one I came from happen to millions of others. I was adopted, at the age of two, into a working class family in which both parents worked to make ends meet. I grew up seeing poverty and excess all around me in this system called civilization. I also grew up with a serious dissatisfaction with what I came to see as the plasticity of the system and its institutions. As I got older, I began to see how working class communities are used by the bourgeoisie as "batteries to bereplaced", when they lose efficiency. This caused me to suffer serious depression. Around age 14, I discovered the anarchist critique and rejected school for what it is, a tool for training the young to become efficient machines in a system that will never let them fly. A few years later my home life deteriorated and I dropped out of 10th grade. At age 16, I was out on the road, living on the streets. In this way, I became a sub-human in the eyes of the system, but I was able to witness and feel the full effects of state repression and America's caste system. What I have felt at the hands of police, property holders and politicians, I will never forgive or forget. This cemented my militancy. If we cannot live the way we wish because of this power structure's over-reaching authoritarianism, then we must directly attack it and the corporate backing of that system. I committed this arson for good reasons. I learned very early that petitioning, protesting and other methods that did not include direct action were either too slow or completely ineffective. In the present corporate climate, "anything goes" is the corporations' philosophy, no matter how harmful the end product or the method of producing that product. This attitude is a threat to national security, as well as an exploitative and sociopathic assault, on animals who are tortured, and the wild which is obliterated. My specific grievances against McDonalds include: 1. The company's factory farms torture and kill defenseless animals. 2. The company's products are nutritionally harmful and specifically marketed to lower class people who suffer physically from eating this unhealthy food. 3. The company generates billions of tons of non-biodegradable garbage that pollutes the body of the goddess Mother Earth. 4. The company promotes the use of massive amounts of grain to feed cattle and other animals, giving rise to an agriculture that is wasteful and unsustainable. 5. The rise of fast food and prepackaged processed meats has caused the alienation of the human animal from the "laws of nature" and the sacred aspects of meat consumption.6. McDonald's is a figurehead of the corporate world that thrives and capitalizes on our suffering.Unlike the Bush Administration, which meets perceived threats to national security with bombs, fire, and the murder of innocents, I have responded to the threat posed by McDonalds with non-violent action. Am I a terrorist or a patriot in the tradition of my lower class forefathers? Should we, the patriots of the ELF/ALF, sit by silently while Mother Earth is raped, pillaged and destroyed? Should we watch, as animals are tortured to death and separated from the freedom, which is their natural right, by the terrorists of the corporate world? I wasn't able to sit by idly and do nothing.We must fight for the liberation of all life and a return to a mentality in which the consumption of meat and our interaction with the world mirrors our respect for the laws of nature and the sacred hunt.For these reasons, I cannot say truthfully that I am sorry for anything I have done, nor will I ask for forgiveness. However, I do ask that you meet me on a level of understanding that transcends social stigmas and mud that the power structure puts on anyone who dares to fight against injustice.For freedom and respect,Christopher "Dirt" McIntosh