Operation Bite Back
Rod Coronado's War to Save American Wilderness
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
Dean Kuipers takes us behind the scenes of the Animal Liberation Front and its punk-anarchist sibling the Earth Liberation Front, two of the most notorious and violent environmental groups and one of the FBI's biggest domestic terrorist priorities--even in the wake of 9/11. Kuipers tells us the story of ALF and ELF through Rod Coronado, an eco-terrorist and animal rights activist who has served jail time on several convictions in connection with his radical activities. From his teenage association with the Sea Shepherd and Earth First! through the federal manhunt that transformed him into a folk hero, Coronado's story parallels a movement that has led to over 1,200 acts of sabotage, $1 billion in damages, and a legal showdown that will define America's relationship to environmentalism. Neither a biography nor a polemic about animal rights, Operation Bite Back tells the outlaw tale of a man who acted on well-defined principles to carry out a campaign of political sabotage, putting his life on the line for an environmental movement that ultimately couldn't afford to be identified with his extreme actions.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kuipers (Burning Rainbow Farm) reports on "eco-tage" or eco-sabotage, groups via the story of Rob Coronado, one of the movement's most active members. After an early victory sinking whaling ships in Iceland, Coronado mounted a series of "actions" over the years, breaking into fur farms and animal-testing laboratories, destroying cages and research documents, and often committing arson. The book provides an exhaustive account of Rod's path through the fringe environmental movement, his evolving political philosophy and his deepening identification with his Yaqui ancestral beliefs, which embrace the environment as an integral element of human life. Simultaneously, it traces how Coronado became "isolated and paranoid" as the FBI intensified its manhunt and eventually arrested the man they characterized as a terrorist. Kuipers's fascination for his subject veers dangerously close to awe at times, but he is generally fair in his depiction of the moral ambiguities at the heart of "eco-tage" and presents the voices of people negatively affected by Coronado. Anyone interested in the extreme edges of the environmental movement will be well served by this account, which throws a light on its often misunderstood philosophy.
