Yet even parts of the movement found him pale. Like the philosopher and environmental theorist Murray Bookchin, when he appeared to favor the famine in Ethiopia and immigration restrictions in the United States as tools for population reduction, he prioritized animals over humans. In a visible statement, called him an eco-fascist. (On both occasions, he said, he got his speech wrong.)
Mr. Foreman argued that his cantankerous demeanor gave mainstream groups and even less aggressive direct action organizations like Greenpeace room to negotiate in Washington. They could point to him as an alternative to extremists.
“We do not make political compromises,” he said in 1980. First issue of Earth First!Newsletter, he first expanded to Earth! journal. “Let’s leave that to other outfits. EARTH FIRST presents the pure, hard-line radical stance of those who believe in Earth first.”
It soon became clear that the FBI agents had facilitated the sabotage and were essentially trying to trap Earth First. A felony, most of the charges were dropped. Mr. Foreman eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges that he gave two copies of his book, Eco-Defense: A Field Guide to the Monkey Wrench (1985), to the agent.
Nonetheless, the stress of legal proceedings created cracks in the organization, as did the arrival of a new group of young activists who wanted to inject social justice issues into Earth First!’s environmentalism. Although Mr. Foreman called himself an “environmental redneck,” he had never shown much interest in left-wing politics.
The group, they wrote in letters to members, was dominated by a “blatant counterculture/anti-establishment style”.
“We feel like we’re sitting in a seedy honky-tonk bar, drinking Lone Star, thumbing quarters on a rural western jukebox, and writing this letter on a bar napkin. .