As far as spiking goes, the Earth First! movement does not support it. The protests are aimed at those setting the policies, not the rank and file workers.
Judi Bari's book "Timber Wars" has an excellent treatment of the spiking question.
ELF has in recent years coat-tailed into a timber sale Cascadia Forest Defenders/Southern Willamette EF! had considered contesting with non-violent civil disobedience.
They spiked that sale, and shut down any plans to do sits or other actions as not to get tied into the work of what are definately terror organizations.
The Earth Liberation Front came into being because some considered EF!'s shunning of sabotage and distruction as too little too late.
I have watched the local EF! group save trees by doing survaeys for red tree voles, an endangered species under the ESA. They consider tree sits and tripod sitting to be last resorts if legal actions or vole, spotted owl, or other protected species are not detected on planned timber sales.
They also remove ELF material from local bulletin boards, and do not permit known ELFers to mix with them. And you know what? If these folks were spiking and buring and carrying on like ELF, or ALF, I would be as death on them as I am towards ELF and ALF. And I watch very chosely to see how they are operating.
As for David Chain, he was being non-violent in his participation in cat and mouse tactics in those units above Owl Creek.
He did what he did out of love of life and the forest, not to hurt or damage anyone the way Pacific Lumber's owner Charles Hurwitz has.
Many of those in that timber crew cutting trees three times as fast as PATCO did before the hostile takeover by Hurwitz's holding company Maxxon likely have to endure layoffs that was a practice not tolerated in PATCO before Hurwitz.
Hurwitz used Texas Savings and Loan to finance the junk bonds that purchased PATCO. He was interested solely in plucking capital from a company rich in liquidable assets.
The U.S. government had to pay way over a billion taxpayer dollars to return Texas Savings and Loan to solvency. I see Hurwitz as a thief, and without ethics other then those that keep him true to the game of lining his pockets.
PATCO has been cited and fined many many times for logging violations, and some of those were deliberate and in the realm of the worst sort of scoff law activity.
He has bribed and bullied species survey people, and deliberately cut around the clock on two three day weekends he knew there would be no California Forest officials to stop what he was doing.
With all due respect, PATCO and Hurwitz are undefensible. David Chain in comparison was a saint. Here is a website that details Hurwitz's crimes. I doubt Gypsy could have been anywhere as bad as this cull is, even if he had tried.
I just knew your link was going to take me to Darryl Cherney's ridiculous "Jail Hurwitz" web site. That site contains more inaccurate information, lies, distortions, propoganda and polemic than Pravda and Isvestia combined in their Stalinist heydays! Darryl wouldn't know the truth if he tripped over it. If he said the sun was shining, I would instinctively pack my umbrella. The website, by the way, is an absolute piece of crap that hasn't been kept up to date for years, probably because Darryl had a falling out over money with the guy who built and maintained it. Yes, the saintly Darryl can be as money-grubbing as the next guy. "Man does not live by the sale of cheesy t-shirts alone."
Of course Earth First has been trying to clean up its public persona in recent years. So have the Black Panthers. So has Hamas. That doesn't mean any sane person has to believe their BS. If Earth First is not committing violent acts any more (and I am hardly willing to take a book by Judy Barri as conclusive evidence of that), it is only because its cadres know they can rely on ELF, ALF and their allies to do the "wet work" for them. The mindset hasn't changed. Earth First supports the overthrow by any means, legal or illegal, of private property rights, free enterprise, and ultimately our economic and governance system.
As for your opinions of MAXXAM (the correct spelling, by the way) and Charles Hurwitz, they may not be saints, but despite all of the invective and hysteria hurled at them over the years, and all of the investigations and charges leveled at them, they have not been proved to be sinners either. You say, for instance, that MAXXAM used its investment in United Savings Association of Texas to finance its takeover of Pacific Lumber Company. That is not true, though it has been repeated so many times by the terrorists and their liberal allies that it has taken on urban legend status.
Here's a challenge for you. Darryl has posted the entire transcript of the Office of Thrift Supervision hearing on the demise of USAT on his web site. As I am sure you know, that government hearing went on for well more than a year, and it resulted in a 250 page opinion by the hearing judge recommending a finding in favor of MAXXAM and Hurwitz and dismissal of all of the government's charges (funny that Darryl never bothered to post that opinion -- so much for his committment to intellectual integrity). I challenge you to find one shred of evidence in that transcript to support the charge that money flowed out of the S&L to finance the acquisition of Pacific Lumber. If you want anyone to take you seriously, put up some hard facts. If you are unwilling to take the challenge, then you need to think seriously about your level of intellectual maturity.
I don't mean to be mean about this, but I do get upset when someone appears to swallow so easily the lies and distortions fed to us by the hard left.
Good luck to you.
Blau993