Introduction
There are many different ideologies corresponding to different groups of individuals. These ideologies are based on different beliefs, values and habits that help shape our world. Even though there are many ideologies, do we, as a society, accept all of them? Capitalist companies and governments do not accept ideologies that are against or not with their own beliefs. Even though individuals have a right to speak their mind, they are not always heard. Capitalist companies and governments go against John Locke’s natural law principle, which states that people cannot violate other people’s rights to life. We are seen examples of this in the two documentaries If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman) and L’erreur Boréale (directed by Richard Desjardins). Both of these films show different people’s ideologies about the environment and how the government and capitalist companies are not hearing their views. We hope you enjoy the blog.
Part 1 - If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
If a
Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front is
a documentary directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman and was first released
in January of2011. The film is approximately 85 minutes long and is based on a
radical environmentalist group called the Earth
Liberation Front. This documentary is different than most because it shows
the point of view of three different groups. The first and most documented group
is represented through the character Daniel McGowan who was an active member of
the Earth Liberation Front. Daniel is awaiting trial for his actions on behalf
of the ELF for multiple counts of arson on public buildings. The ELF began
burning buildings of the companies that profited from deforestation after a
string of peaceful protests went met with police brutality. The second group of
people in the documentary are the business owners who are the ones cutting down
the trees for profit. They get the chance to explain that what they are doing
is not necessarily affecting the planet to the extent that everyone believes
and that they also replace a lot of the trees that they cut down. The
documentary also does a great job of humanizing the business owners by showing
the damage as well as the personal responses to their buildings being
destroyed. The third and final group in the documentary are the Oregon state
police as well as the FBI agents who are attempting to stop the protests and
arsons. The police are shown both as instigators of violence and as peace
keepers throughout the film. We see the instigator side when they are forcibly
removing and pepper spraying the protestors who are not acting violent.
However, arson is still viewed as a crime and can also be viewed as extremely
dangerous which is why it was important for the FBI to catch those responsible.
Dan eventually left the ELF when he thought their ideas were getting too
radical. In the end, many members of the ELF were caught and sent to jail and
in Dan’s case; he was branded as a domestic terrorist.
Throughout
the entire documentary there is the question of the legitimacy of democracy in
the United States. Democracy states that every person is supposed to have an
equal say, yet in If a Tree Falls we
see only the rich and powerful people are the ones who decide the fate of the
forests. John Locke argued that society has the right to revolt when the law is
inadequate and violent and the ELF strongly believes that the government is
being unfair. It also brings up the debate of ecology versus capitalism or the
love of nature versus the love of money. The film shows the protestors trying
to save the trees and nature and then the businessmen who are attempting to
make a living. This ties in to the concept of ideologies that everybody has.
Ideologies are a set of beliefs or values that a person or a group of people
have. We see multiple ideologies throughout the film and many of them begin to
clash with each other. First of all, there is the clash between the protestors
and the business men, but there is also a clash of ideologies between the peaceful
and violent protests. Some of the protestors such as Daniel took more drastic
measures in order to get their messages heard. What comes with ideologies is
the idea of integrity. Integrity is when your personal values can change
depending on the situation in front of you.. The character which embodies this
concept would be Jake Ferguson who pretty much founded the Earth Liberation
Front. In an attempt to save himself Ferguson tricks his other members into
confessing to their crimes so he would get less jail time. He betrayed his
friends and dropped his personal values in a stressful situation.
Here is a link of an interview with
Marshall Curry director giving his input on the situation in Oregon. The idea
of the media is supposed to be to keep the people informed and do so in a
politically correct way. Today, many people feel that the media is doing an
inadequate job at being a public service.
Here is a link of an interview with Marshall Curry
director giving his input on the situation in Oregon.
Part 2 - L'erreur Boréale
L'Erreur Boréale is a documentary film produced by Québec singer
Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie in 1999. The documentary lasts 70
minutes and it was filmed in the Province of Québec. This film is about the
problem of deforestation that we are facing today in Québec. Most of the
province’s population might not know it, but the forest is a public place and
if we were to divide it, each individual would have the equivalent of 20
baseball fields of land. What is shocking in this film is that the Government
has sold these parcels of land to forestry companies without consulting the
population first. Since the birth of our country, forestry has been the
pillar of our economy. In the past, companies stayed close to the shore of
rivers, where they were working, because it was easy to cut trees and heave
them into the water. Thanks to the fact that trees are less dense than water,
the water would transport the trees to the mill and then transform them into
either paper or other wooden resources. With the constant evolution of the
market plus the lack of wood, companies had to move away from the shore and
created roads that go through the forest itself. Their main goal now was to
clear the forest to make the most profit. Richard Desjardins being curious
about the companies behaviour, he went to go see the minister of the
environment (Léopold Gaudreau) and learned that the minister has no control
over the forest because of Bill 150. Thanks to this Bill, companies can now
cut whatever they want in the condition that they plant trees in places where
they cut. This is paid with the money of the public. Some people would say that
it's a good deal but it's not. Indeed a forest has diversity and that makes it
possible for a complete ecosystem to live but if we cut all the trees down and
only plant some new trees, it would be impossible for all the animals to come
back. Animals live in these grown trees that are being cut down. When Richard
Desjardins goes to a forest companies meeting he asks a question about the
regeneration system used by the companies and the only answer that he gets is:
"Question niaiseuse" (stupid question). It shows us that companies
don't care about the threat that they're inflicting to forests because it seems
like all they care about is profit.
That's where the Ideology comes in. By living in a democratic
country, everyone should be on the same level and should be able to decide whether
or not selling our resources is a good thing for our province. Private
companies should not decide for the faith of our public goods because they only
care about their own interest. If we look at it more closely, the forestry
companies are breaking the natural law that
prevents people or industries to violate other people properties. As a society
it's our duty to make sure that those rights are not threatened. We can also
ask ourselves the question, is it more important to make money or to protect our
environment knowing that a small amount of people makes profit of our common
goods? The major problem would be the clash of the ecologist ideology against
the capitalist one. One promotes the protection of the environment at any price
and the other promotes the profit making.
Movie of L'erreur Boréale
Part 3 - Reflection of the Two Movies
These two environmental documentaries show us of individuals
who work nonstop to try and help the environment. These individuals only
represent a small percentage of people in our communities and countries that are concerned with environmental threats. We know that there are many environmental threats but
what are we doing to help our planet? We can ask ourselves what do we do
individually to help the planet. Do you recycle? Do you compost? Even if we do
these two things, are we doing enough? Can we do more? There are individuals,
like Daniel McGowan, who take of the labels from cans and recycle them. There
are individuals like Richard Desjardins who go to forest companies meetings and
bring up environmental issues. Environmentalists teach us that we could do more
than just recycle and compost to help our planet. You don’t have to do extreme
things to help out the environment but if everybody puts a bit more effort and
does a bit more work, then we would be able to help save our planet
significantly.
These documentaries teach us about tree cutting and how it
has a significant impact on the environment. Tree companies cut down thousands
of trees a year to help their businesses and industries grow. Based on the documentaries
L’erreur Boréale and If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth
Liberation Front, these companies do not care about how many trees they cut
down but they only care about how much profit they get. They teach us that
companies are more interested in capitalism and getting that extra money than
not cutting down as many trees. This doesn’t happen in one area of the world,
deforestation is happening all over the United States, Canada, the Amazon and many more places. Even when environmentalists
like Daniel McGowan and Richard Desjardins bring up issues of deforestation,
nobody listens to them.
Environmentalists try and transform our vision that our
environment and tree numbers are falling apart significantly. The news and
newspapers don’t bring up this issue like they should. Politicians and
companies make everything seem like what they are doing is ok and we believe
them because we are dependent on stuff made by trees. We are dependent on
material like paper, toilet paper and nose tissues. We do not think about
deforestation and tree issues more than we should because most people want
paper, chairs or other wooden materials made out of trees. Environmentalists
are trying to tell us that we have to change the number of trees we cut down
because next thing we know, there will not be enough trees to make our paper or
chairs.
The message that these two documentaries are giving us is
that we cannot look at environmental issues later in the future. We have to
look at them now. If individuals try harder to make a difference now, we may be
able to save our environment. “We won’t have a society if we destroy the
environment.” (– Margaret Mead). We have to act now.
Environmental quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_environmental.html
Conclusion
Different Ideologies come from different individuals. We, as humans, all have the right to express our own opinion. Even if some people do not like your opinions and beliefs, do not let these people change who you are. In these two documentaries, we were able to see individuals fighting back in what they believe. Daniel McGowan and Richard Desjardins are great examples of people who fight back. We should all learn from these two gentlemen. We hoped you enjoyed out blog entry and we hope that you learned a lot about Ideologies and about the documentaries.
