Hard to know what Ed would say about this.  For all of the love he had for the preservation of the American Southwest, he was also a big critic of the influx of Mexican immigrants in the area, legal and otherwise.

The more I think about this, I don't think this project is even about stop illegal crossing the border. It is about the construction developers getting more money.

The Bush admin has created so many poor choices, that have led to many creatures destuction. - It is sad that any person could/did vote for this numnut!

Thanks, Erik, for that interesting, depressing essay by Haim Watzman.  Watzman refers briefly to how "European and African" fauna meet in Palestine; and, also briefly, he mentions ibexes and leopards particulary.  Rather, there had been a great community of animals from East Africa to Central and Southern Asia, which the desertification of North Africa and the Middle East in the past couple of millennia tended to divide into discreet populations.

The fauna of Israel and the Occupied West Bank (?; and are there any critters in Gaza, way over-populated by humans?) are probably isolated from other members of their species.  And they themselves should ideally have access to the several ecosystems in that tiny region: the Jordan valley, the Judean and Negev deserts, the Mediterranean littoral, and the intervening highlands.

As Watzman makes clear, human technological reactions based on fear and hatred will of course decrease animals' chances for survival.

As Watzman's words suggest, without his intending, the fear and hatred that human beings fear for one another do not counsel them to do good and wise things.

Note that Lou Dobbs and his fellow travelers similarly refuse to understand Latino undocumented visitors to this country as they truly are, our vulnerable, needy brethren, but prefer to indulge their baser instincts and condemn them as violent, aggressive invaders, threats to our womenfolk and children, competitors for jobs, importers of dangerous illegal substances, and allies of terrorists.  That is fear and hatred at work.  It will do no one any good, ever.

On a natural-science note, Watzman included both "jackals" and "coyotes" among the fauna of Palestine.  "Jackals" probably refers to the Golden Jackal, Canis aureus.  But "coyotes" cannot possibly refer to the North American and Central American canid of that name, Canis latrans.  However, there may indeed be an isolated population of the Gray Wolf in Palestine, Canis lupus ssp., and those wolves might be small in stature, like our own Mexican wolves, another subspecies adapted for an arid climate; and those wolves might colloquially be referred to by humans with an ill-educated American background as "coyotes."

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Ocelots are indeed among the most incredibly beautiful animals on the planet, and it is right and just that they should be chosen to be the poster-victims of the US HSD's onslaught on the connected ecosystems of the US's southern border, even as polar bears are the poster-victims of how global warming is affecting the Arctic.

But jaguars are stunning too, our largest native cats.  And the more diminutive margays, often overlooked, are, if anything, even prettier and cuter than ocelots.

And jaguarundis, of whom our South Texas pal Sam Wells is a great admirer, are also beautiful, but rather more subtly so, since their coloring is a solid charcoal, or thereabouts, not a gorgeous array of black markings on a white/tawny/gold background.

Also, we should never underestimate the effect the border wall is likely to have on the Mexican Wolf, a southernmost subspecies of the Gray Wolf: recently reintroduced into both southern Arizona and New Mexico, and central Chihuahua and Sonora, it would not be helped at all by a big obstacle on the border.

On another matter: We should understand that the erection of the border wall will not drive any of these species into extinction, because all of them are doing OK elsewhere.  But we need to understand that populations matter too, and definitely deserve much effort to be preserved.  All four of those cats, and the one canid, may very well be eliminated from all of northern Mexico and the US Southwest, without our hard work, including strongly opposing the border wall.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I'd wager that Edward Abbey would be pulling up stakes...if any project was ripe for monkeywrenching, this is it...

While he didn't care much for human immigrants, I don't believe he had anything against jaguars and Sonoran pronghorns.  I like to think that his love of wilderness would ultimately have overridden his anti-immigrant sentiments, and that he would recognize the border wall as being in the same category as the Glenn Canyon damn. (sic.)
        And what should we do?  Personally, I think some good old-fashioned civil disobedience is definitely in order.  If the powers that be insist on flouting the law, what else can we do?

Let the jaguars return!

But is ruining the life's work of coal mining execs wrong?  Or auto company CEOs who keep on making gas guzzlers?

Depends on how it's done.  If you make them obsolete?

How about the masters of (oil) war?  Making (oil) war obsolete, that has to be aok.

And that can be done non-violently.  With a combination of civil disobedience, political action, and trend setting.

Is having 100 million bucks to invest in hedge funds trendy?  Look at Hill and Bill, undone by a poor person.  Hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Backcut states that "Destruction of another person's work is yet another form of violence".  And, in most instances,  I'm inclined to agree.
     Consider this, however: Let us imagine that someone were to spraypaint graffiti on the Carnegie Library building.  (If you don't have one of these in your home town, substitute your favorite historical edifice.)  Is cleaning off the paint an act of violence against the graffiti artist?  Should   we be concerned about the cost of the paint, and the time that the painter invested in creating the graffiti?  Or is the graffiti artist the one who's acting violently?  Should we simply state that vandalism of a historical building is inappropriate,  regardless of the time and money invested in said vandalism?
   I think it's entirely appropriate to ask these questions with regard to the border fence.  This project is, (to my mind), an act of violence and vandalism against wilderness areas on the border, much worse, in its way, than graffiti tags on a historic building.  If someone takes action to destroy a barrier fence in a sensitive area, are they meeting violence with more violence?  Or are they simply cleaning off the graffiti, and trying to repair the damage?
   The creative impulse is a beautiful, wonderful thing, but unfortunately, it is sometimes used to very destructive ends.  As Dave Barry once observed, "The Unabomber made finely crafted, high quality letter bombs.  That doesn't make it right."
       It should be remembered, also, that civil disobedience does not simply mean monkeywrenching.  It can take many other forms.

Let the jaguars return!

That is excellent, Storm Dragon.  Just because a human work is accomplished by means of great scientific or artistic knowledge and creativity, that does not make it on balance "good."

Funny you should mention the Carnegie Libraries.  Whatever we may think of the legacy of old Andrew, as arch-industrialist and steel magnate, he certainly was a great benefactor of the arts and sciences.  Carnegie Hall here in NYC is perhaps his best-known and appreciated gift.  But as a dinosaurophile, I fondly remember his sponsoring some of the great paleontological discoveries of the US West.  His museum in Pittsburgh is, I believe, the only museum in the world (and now undergoing a thrilling restoration) with not one but two large mounted sauropod skeletons, Andrew's favorite Diplodocus, and the even larger Apatosaurus louisae, named in honor of Mrs. Carnegie.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

From the dictionary: "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something"

Is Backcut's use of the word within this definition?. He appears to suggest that any wilful disruption of another's (professional?) activity is  intrinsically violent. I assume this would apply however peaceful the means of disruption and however demonstrably malevolent the disrupted activity's nature or purpose. Do we accept that?

The thesaurus puts things in a rather different light: synonyms for violence are listed as "brutality, brute force, ferocity, savagery, cruelty, sadism, barbarity, brutishness". I find it hard to associate the act of surreptitiously moving or removing surveyor's stakes with any of these words, however annoying or indeed counterproductive it might be.

Let's not debase the language and throw around random and irrelevant charges of hypocrisy. Let's keep some perspective here.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

I am aware from your previous posts, Backcut, that you have issue with anti-logging enthusiasts who sometimes, apparently, do some rather stupid things in support of their cause. I am not particularly familiar with the issues involved but I would have a great deal of sympathy with your concerns. I am for intelligent action just as much as I am in favor of non-violent action in support of sound environmental goals. Violence against equipment is indeed still violence. But in many minds, it's a violence of a very different order: there's quite a clear distinction between violence against the logger and violence against the logger's equipment. To lump the two together suggests you hold people and their stuff in equal value. Can this be true?

To return to the present example, do you consider the disruption of the border fencer's doubtfully 'lawful' work an equal evil to the fencer's species-threatening disruption of an essential habitat? We're hardly talking about harming a traditional way of life here: the fencers got the job yesterday and it'll be finished tomorrow.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

""To violate" is a very strong verb, and we should restrict it, and the nominal forms "violation" and "violence," to occasions of real physical harm inflicted on sentient beings."

I agree.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

This thread is speculating about potential modes of environmentalist response  to fencebuilding in the desert which is being carried out with no pretense of environmental benefit, much indication of severe environmental harm, and which is unlawful to boot, i.e. not very comparable to the analogs you describe.

However: yes, I would be annoyed at my vehicle being vandalized. But I would still consider this to be a very different kind of activist behavior than dropping a rock from an overpass as I was driving below. I'd reserve the 'violence' monicker for the latter.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Some of us have liability-only policies.  I'm pretty sure Uncle Sam doesn't, however.

Let the jaguars return!

I read a lot of the comments and stories on grist but have never posted. I simply could not resist when it came to this subject though because I am a resident in the southwest. Let me first make it clear that I am against the border fence, it is something that won't be effective and is a ridiculous solution to a "problem" that could be handled easily with discussion between our two countries ( a big reason why people come over illegally is because it is very hard to get things done on the Mexican side). However, "civil disobedience" as it is being called, moving flags and such effects more than just your intended. In construction flags mark water, sewage, and electrical lines that are underground so the crew knows not to dig there. If they happen to hit one, they wipe out power to neighborhoods, or put holes in water pipelines. I don't know for sure if these things run near the wall that they are building, but I know a friend of mine who was working down there said that he hit an electrical line (he drills holes for a living) on or near where the wall is going. Instead of just thinking about the animals (which in my opinion as well are very important to the biodiversity of the southwest) it would be prudent to find other methods of protest to this.

I realize now that someone is going to tell me something like "electricity is not a necessity blah blah blah" but water is.