Radical groups and their effect on other social movement organizations

Recently, we read an article for class titled "Earth First! and the Rhetoric of Moral Confrontation," written by Brant Short. I was personally not familiar with Earth First! before reading this article, but I learned that this radical group uses extreme (and often illegal) measures such as "placing metal spikes in trees to prevent logging, pulling up survey stakes on land development sites, vandalizing machinery, and sitting in trees that are scheduled for timber harvesting." The founders of Earth First! split with the mainstream environmental movement, accusing its members of being too "soft," and "selling out" to political agendas or personal motives. Today's mainstream environmental groups fear that Earth First!'s tactics will hurt the overall environmental movement by causing the public to associate all environmentalist causes with radical environmentalism.

The author also uses Earth First! as an example of how agitation and confrontation can be important rhetorical tools for a social movement. Now, I would like to make it clear that while I consider myself to be very pro-environment, I am by no means a radical environmentalist, and definitely do not support the tactics that are employed by Earth First! However, it is interesting to consider how Earth First! can actually help the larger environmental movement. First, the radical group's controversial policies bring publicity to the concerns that the movement is aiming to address. Secondly, by creating a counter-response, these radical extremists make other pro-environment groups, such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, etc., seem much more moderate/rational in the agendas they set and the actions they take in order to preserve the environment.

Short's ideas on rhetoric can be applied not only to environmental groups, but to social movement organizations of all types. No matter what the cause, if a radical movement develops from a larger, but more moderate movement, the publicity they attract will reflect back to the moderate group. Thus, the larger movement will be given an opportunity to counter the radical agenda with a more rational one that the public will be more likely to support.