In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

2 Birth of Nonviolent Resistance Civil Disobedience. Thoreau wrote about it, Gandhi practiced it. . . . It’s an American right, and no single individual, no government agency, no big business concern, and no political extremist group can take it away from us. . . . It’s easy to give a buck for a pin, sign a petition that is only half read, or donate a few dollars to an organization that has dedicated its proceeds to the fight. It takes a lot to link arms with your fellow citizens and wait to be arrested. —Kathryn Ross, of the Wellsville Daily Reporter in column “My HomeTown” on June 5, 1989 M A R C H 1 9 , 1 9 8 9 — GARY LLOYD SAT ALONE in a corner of his basement. The last of twenty men, most wearing camouflage, had just left and it was nearly midnight.They had formed a clandestine group called the Allegany Hilltop Patrol to fight the nuclear dump. Quickly agreeing not to do anything to harm people, they had begun talking about ways to sabotage drilling rigs and bulldozers. People in other movements might call it “ecotage,” but the local men meeting in Lloyd’s basement simply referred to it as“vandalism,”albeit vandalism for a good cause. Although Gary had known most of these men for a long time, he was uneasy with the group’s size. Almost everyone he had called had brought two or three friends. All evening Gary had listened and watched, as though he were observing animals in nature. An avid bow hunter, he was used to interpreting the moods of deer by observing their tiniest movements. These guys were, he concluded, deadly serious. A few, however, seemed a bit too eager to blow something up, while others appeared overly nervous. The mere thought of a nuclear dump in Allegany County was a personal assault on Gary’s world. As a little boy spending summers and weekends on his grandmother’s farm, he had freely roamed through the wilderness and played in the creeks. When he was five years old, he learned to fashion spears and 37 SUNY_Pet_ch02.qxd 9/13/01 2:04 PM Page 37 spent hours trying to catch sculpins, tiny minnow-like fish that scooted along creek bottoms. His spear raised over the water, he would wait motionless at the bank for just the right moment to strike. Eventually he learned their habits and could predict their movements. For Gary that was hunting—focusing on an animal until he knew its habits so intimately that he could take its life. As an adult he hunted deer the same way. During the winter and summer months he would hide in the woods, camouflaged, watching the movements of bucks and does. Before bow season began in the fall, he would pick out the cagiest buck, who interested him because he was so unpredictable. He wouldn’t shoot any other deer that season. Some years he would get his buck; often it outwitted him. Hunting for Gary was a time to harmonize with nature and think like his totemic animal, the deer. Poisoning this natural world with nuclear trash was sacrilege. Gary felt morally justified to explore all options to keep the dump out of the county—including vandalism. Now, however, he began to have serious doubts about sabotage. How could they be so sure no one would get hurt? How would the people in the county respond to such acts of vandalism? Would vandalism divide people in the county, giving them an excuse to remain uninvolved? Gradually, an idea formed, and Gary smiled to himself.Why not civil disobedience ? Maybe the siting commission could be kept off the land without resorting to clandestine operations. The forty-six-year-old teacher remembered reading about nonviolent resistance during the Civil Rights Movement when he was in college. Just after he started teaching high school biology at Alfred-Almond Central School, friends who lived in Rochester and Buffalo used civil disobedience to protest the war inVietnam. As an untenured new teacher in a rural, conservative county, Gary regretfully felt he could not join these protests.Why not try civil disobedience now? The next day after breakfast Gary headed to Steve Myers’s house. He admired the way CCAC had unified the county against the dump, even though he felt that legal battles and legislative lobbying would not save the county. If anyone would be able to get people actively involved in civil disobedience, Steve could...

Share